


We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals.

by cryingdrama3



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: (but not the sexy kind), Almost Stabbing, Asphyxiation, Assassin Ricky Goldsworth, Blood, C. C. Tinsley Being an Idiot, Complete, Criminal Ricky Goldsworth, Detective C. C. Tinsley, Divorce, Dramatic clothes, Dysfunctional Family, Everyone Needs Therapy, F/F, Faking Death, Family Drama, Fist Fights, Francesca Norris - Freeform, Funeral, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Knives out vibes, M/M, My friend said that I should just tag violence just in case, Night Night Bergara, Serial Killer Ricky Goldsworth, Smoking, Step-parents, Violence, bad fighing scenes, not really - Freeform, ”after credit scene”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryingdrama3/pseuds/cryingdrama3
Summary: After the death of C.C.'s mother, he goes to the funeral where he bumps into his sister and brother. How do you explain to them that you faked your death and now live with an assassin? Family drama ensues.
Relationships: "Night Night" Bergara/"Legs" Madej, Francesca Norris/Original Female Character(s), Ricky Goldsworth/C. C. Tinsley
Comments: 29
Kudos: 64





	1. Death in the Family.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES: Caroline is not my own character, it is my friend's. Follow her @mac.n.chezy on Instagram. However, Sophia is my own character. The title is from "The Umbrella Academy" Episode 1, Season 1.  
> This story is part of "The Crime Family series"

Many say that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he decorates his home. If his home is messy, he’s a messy man. If his home has too many contrasting themes in decoration that simply do not match, he either changes a lot about himself in a short amount of time or he simply doesn’t know how to decorate a home. 

For this man, that is true. When he stepped inside of his home, he knew what to expect. The black walls, the smooth stone counters, the couch he barely sat in because he never gets company. The only indication of someone being here was his housekeeper cleaning the dust off of the tv he never turns on. The condo was considered small, he never bothered with a place that was unnecessarily large. After all, he lived alone. No single houseplant could survive this cold and dark place. 

He sighs, slipping off his suit jacket and folding it over the arm of his couch. It has been a long day at the office, too many case files were stacked on his desk that needed to be spread evenly. The corner of his living room where once resided a plastic plant was now where a cart full of expensive alcohol can be considered a home. He pours himself a scotch, neat before stirring it in his cup. 

It was a strong flavor that he has grown accustomed and attached to. For a long time, he thought that the taste of it was disgusting and not worth the money he spent. But over time, the flavor brought him comfort that was almost pathetic really. The burn of the alcohol going down his throat, the horrid taste that he felt inside of his nose was needed after a long day of work. Punishment and reward. 

For a man who was just a bit over the age of forty, he still feels older. He sighs as he heads to his dining table, nothing set and maybe he’ll order Thai take out. He hasn’t had a cooked meal for the past two weeks. Who knew that a divorce could make you lose weight? 

He was halfway through his second drink when his phone buzzed on the freezing wooden table. Answering it but not bothering to look who was calling, a habit that he needs to break after all of this is over. “Hello?” spoke the man into the phone with a voice that can shake houses. A voice that can make anyone turn around and focus their attention on him. The voice of his father was in his. 

“O.C.?” the person on the line said. 

The voice was unfamiliar but familiar all together. Spending their whole lives together made it easy to recognize each other’s voices. But time changes and so do people it seems. O.C. sits up from his slumping. “Who is this?” he asks, far too tired to demand anything from a person over the phone with the voice of-- 

“It’s Caroline,” she says. “Your sister.” 

Oscar Cole blinks a couple of times, staring at a black and white painting that his third ex wife hung there just to make the place seem nicer as if he didn’t wear all black all the time and his condo reflected that. “What do you want?” was all that could come out of his mouth. And he couldn’t have stopped it even if he wanted to. And frankly, he didn’t. It was inappropriate, he knew that. He simply didn’t care. 

“It’s nice to hear that you’re still a bastard,” she says and there was a moment where he swore that she regretted calling him. 

“Time changes you, sister dear,” he grumbles. “Why do I have the pleasure of receiving a call from you?” 

She didn’t answer for a long time. At that moment, he knew that there was something wrong. Caroline always had something to say, upbeat and a loudmouth that will blabber on and on and on and on and--

“Ma died, Oscar Cole.” 

====

The truth was that when their mother died, Caroline was the first one to receive the news. She was walking home from the bus stop when the hospital called of her mother’s passing.  _ Heart attack _ , they said.  _ There was no way to save her. It was too late, _ they said. She was well aware of her mother’s heart condition, having long accepted that she was going to die someday. It was just so cruel that she was the one that had to tell the family. 

It was her mother’s wish to have a small funeral. Family only. It was sweet to think that. As if most of the family isn’t already dead. Most of Caroline’s aunts and uncles were gone. Dead or jail or just busy with their lives. So there was no other way to not make it a small funeral. 

Calling O.C. was the hardest thing she’s had to do. She was the one that called him about their father’s funeral and for C.C’s a few years after that. It always seemed like she was the bearer of bad news. The one with the worst luck in the world. She was there when he got married to his first wife, and she was sweet but needed constant attention so no wonder she left and wanted a divorce. When she got the second wedding invitation, she didn’t go. Why? Because she didn’t want to. O.C. getting married more than once is never good. And after his third divorce, she just sighed and threw the invitation out. 

But when he got married, that was the last time she saw Charlie before his death. That one hit her a little bit too low. She almost didn’t recover completely from that one. 

“The funeral is the day after tomorrow,” she says when he doesn't answer. Maybe he was in shock or maybe he didn’t listen to a word she said but it didn’t matter. If he even shows up will be more of a miracle than her mother opening her eyes in her casket. “I’ll send you the time, Oscar Cole.” She didn’t say anything after that. No  _ ‘goodbye’ _ or  _ ‘see you there’  _ or  _ ‘have a nice day’ _ . The bastard didn’t deserve her niceties. 

Caroline was the forgotten little sister of the two most successful of the Tinsley family. Charlie Copper went on to become some big shot detective that people adored before his passing and Oscar Cole started to work for the government as some pen pusher with a big paycheck and an alcohol problem and three failed marriages. But what about her? Part-time nanny for three different children and art museum tour guide who gets catcalled by 60-year-old men because she fits their 50’s housewife fantasies. 

Now she has to plan her mother’s funeral and wait for the family lawyer to call her back for the will reading. When her mother died, she already had some things figured out, she even had the clothes she wanted to be buried in on her bed. It was sweet that her mother was helping her even from the great beyond. A bit creepy though. She’s never seen a person so ready for their death. 

There’s not going to be a mass. Ma was never a religious person. Only heading to church to please her husband on special occasions like Easter and Christmas. Despite that, she was a kind woman. The type of women that you can tell that they are happy by just looking at the eyes. 

Caroline hears a cup of tea being placed next to her, on the sunflower coaster she had set on her desk. She didn’t turn around when someone sat next to her on the desk, moving some of the papers around to make space. “Do you need any help?” Fran asks, sipping her own tea. 

She shakes her head. “I’m alright,” she reassures as she reaches over to blow on her tea. “I’m just busy with paperwork.” She had so many things to do for the funeral. Even though it was small, it still took a lot out of people. 

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Fran asks, putting her hand on her shoulder.

Caroline touches her hand and shakes her head. “You don’t have to say that. I saw you Google ‘how to comfort your girlfriend when her mom dies’,” she says. Francesca was never the type to talk about feelings, always being the calm and collective that balances Caroline’s overly emotional nature. It took her half a year to work up the courage to ask her out on a coffee date. 

Fran squeezes her shoulder. “I still want to help you,” she says and means it. “You haven’t cried at all.” 

It’s true. When Caroline heard the news, she simply asked for the paperwork and that’s it. Almost as if she wanted to get this over with. To have her, the type of gal who cries at the sight of a puppy yawning, not shed a tear is simply alarming. 

“I’m just… still in shock,” she says. “It’ll hit me when I’m at the funeral.” Hopefully, she thinks as she bites the inside of her cheek. “I need to call the family lawyer for the will reading after the funeral. Hopefully, she already heard the news.” 

Fran sighs, sipping on her tea. “I’ll drop you off before the funeral starts,” she starts to get up from the desk. “Text me so I can come and pick you up--” She was interrupted and stopped when she felt her girlfriend’s soft and cool hands wrap around her wrist. 

“I want you there,” she says, looking up at her for the first time in a while. Her overly freckled face made Fran’s days always better, guessing the amount every single day in the morning until one day she might get it right. She wants to spend the rest of her life in bed with her and guess it over and over again. 

Fran smiles, holding her girlfriend’s wrist back, and rubs her pulse point soft to comfort her in her own strange and silent way. “I’ll make us dinner. Do you want Italian?” 

Caroline gasps, pulling her hand away. “Italian! I forgot to call my cousin!” she says, remembering that strange cousin in the family that was closer to her mom than O.C or C.C. She stands up, grabbing her phone from the desk, walking past Fran to go have a conversation on the balcony but she turns around, planting an annoyingly wet kiss on her cheek. “Italian sounds great.” 


	2. The Last One to Find Out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing fluff and then angst. Enjoy y'all.

Mornings in the Goldsworth Household consists of waking up in nice, cool sheets and under elegant sheets. Everything in this home was expensive, but it was tasteful. Like nice scotch imported from New York. Not the best but knowing that you can get the best only for the sake of humility. C.C had his face tucked into soft black hair, his arms wrapped around the waist of the man he loves so much as if he was a teddy bear. To have one of the most notorious assassins with several illegal connections that owe him favors as the little spoon makes him feel some type of way. 

C.C always wakes up just a bit earlier than him, his internal detective clock wakes him up at the crack of dawn but over the time he has spent with Ricky he’s been able to force himself into a state of dreamless almost-sleep. Some habits are just hard to break sometimes. Moments like this, where Ricky is asleep and the wide window’s curtains are open and the sun come in, hitting this man in a certain angle makes him look so heavenly. He smells of tangerines, cinnamon, and every hope and dream he ever had; he smells of love. 

“It’s a bit creepy that you smell me in the morning,” Ricky mumbles with a sleep ridden voice. He shifts, moving closer to the taller man despite the abundance of space on the king-sized bed. 

C.C hums, kissing the short man on his bare shoulder, skin warm with the shared body heat under the covers and sheets. “You like it,” he teases as he pulls him closer. Only this ex-detective was able to kiss and pull on this wanted and dangerous man. Only he was allowed to make him vulnerable. 

Ricky snorts as he reaches to hold the taller man’s hand that was wrapped around his waist. “Your hands are boiling,” he whispers, eyes slowly opening through the sun that pours into the bedroom. “Get in the shower.” But he doesn’t pull away, letting his hands rest comfortably around him. Despite being able to kill anyone with almost anything handed to him, he does like being held. 

The tall man slowly moves away, rubbing his face as he stares up at the high ceiling and feels Ricky place his head on C.C’s shoulder, closing his eyes with deep breaths. “I’m not that busy today,” he explains, reaching to hold his thin hands and play with his long fingers curiously, inspecting them as if they were the first time he’s seen them. “I have to do… something,” he says. 

The ex-detective knows what that  _ something  _ was. He had long accepted that Ricky was doing things that were not only illegal but immoral. It wasn’t like he was killing innocent people. It was usually people who are in the criminal business who need to get rid of their ‘issues’ and Ricky just happened to be the best of the best. He gets the job done, quick and easy, and without a single trace. It didn’t hurt that Ricky also  _ enjoyed  _ his work. 

But loving someone means that you accept their flaws. No matter how murderous they were. 

“But I’ll be home by dinner,” he says, kissing C.C’s knuckles, the faint white lines that adore them. Ricky wasn’t the only one who had to shed blood to work. The only difference was that the tall man didn’t really enjoy it as much as the love of his life. 

C.C hums, nodding and understanding. That was what love was to him-- it was understanding your partner. To see their point of view and be able to process it. After all, love was the most dangerous game to play. Ricky continued: “But this Sunday, we can have our alone time.” he whispers into his ear. “I can send Sophia off with her cousins for the day and we can have a nice dinner…” 

The ex-detective smiles. 

“We can have some wine and go out wherever you like,” Ricky details as he sits up, the covers shifting so they cover his waist. 

The taller man looks up at him, reaching to touch his lover’s soft face, trailing his thumb on his chin. “That sounds nice,” he whispers. Here, where he whispers to only Ricky’s ears because all of those soft words were only for him and no one else had the right to be let into their love. A sweet secret like a surprise that should never be exposed. “But please shave. You look like your brother.” he teases and lets out a laugh when Ricky wraps his arms around him and sits in his lap. 

“You take that back!” he says, squeezing him hard enough to make C.C breathless. “I do not look like Nick.” 

He laughs louder as Ricky moves his hands to wrap around the ex-detective’s neck and squeezes. It wasn’t hard enough to stop the airflow but enough to threaten it. C.C looks up at him with a smile. He should be terrified, he’s seen this man kill people with his bare hands-- the same that were wrapped around his neck -- and he’s been there to help wash the blood of some poor soul off his face and blood. But he just smiles at him. He trusts him. He loves him. 

“Okay!” he laughs with the widest smile ever. “You don’t look like your brother.” He was breathless but still laughing when Ricky pulled his hand away. Granting him the ability to breathe freely. “But you are twins.” he reminds him as he watches the short man get up from his lap to wrap himself in his silky red robe that was hanging behind the master bathroom’s door. 

“Do not remind me that he and I share not only the same DNA but the same face,” he says, ready to start his day. And with a pleased smile, C.C follows him. 

_ I'll follow you anywhere _ , he said a long time ago. 

  
  
  


Ricky didn’ts stay for breakfast, having to get to a meeting all the way across town by eight-thirty so C.C was sitting alone at the large and slick dining table. It was one of those tables that can fit the whole extended half of a single person. And that's why he got it. It was able to not only fit his own family but also C.C’s. Every once in a while, they would all drop by to have a nice dinner and spend time together. It was simply lovely. Especially around the holidays. 

But now, C.C was sitting alone, sipping on his coffee as he read the newspaper that the maid had left for him. He has been living with Ricky for the past three almost four years and it almost seems that every day that he spends here, all of the maids are surprised that he has lasted this long living with the  _ psychopath  _ that is Ricky Goldsworth. 

At exactly eight-o-five, Sophia sits down across from him in her pajamas. The thing about her that always dazzles him was that she wakes up almost perfect, not a sign of bedhead or anything of sorts. She was absolutely perfect. 

“Good morning,” she says cheerfully. She smiles with brilliant white teeth at him and at the maid that sets her orange juice and plate of food in front of her, nodding a _ thank you _ before she starts to eat. “Where’s Father?” she asks, cutting a piece of her waffle. 

He didn’t look up from the part of the newspaper he was reading when he answered. “He’s at a meeting all the way across town. But he'll be back by dinner time,” he says as he slowly folds the newspaper and places it beside him. 

Sophia Goldsworth was the daughter of the monster known as Ricky Goldsworth. She is kept secret, never in public as a way to keep her safe from others who wish to do harm to him and his family. That’s a thing he and Sophia have in common-- being a secret. When C.C started living with him, he was pleasantly surprised that this murderous man had the ability to care and love for such a tiny and sweet child. C.C and Sophia's meeting was surreal, the then-six-year-old shook his hand and asked how his day was. The kindest little girl he had the pleasure to know. Now, she has grown up looking up to him. 

The rest of the way was nice. The usual routine whenever Ricky wasn’t home. Him reading an old mystery book that his lover had bought the moment he heard that C.C had a love for vintage novels, purchasing the best he could find and placing them in the not-so-large library for him to enjoy. It was a sweet gesture that the tall man thinks about every time he steps inside the library. 

Perhaps he has read this book more than ten times but it is still enjoyable. It was the thought that made him feel a buzz of excitement every time he picks up the books.

And next to him, Sophia was knitting. She enjoys usual feminine activities: knitting, quilting, embroidery, and sewing. Not that she ever needs those abilities, having a tailor that not only does the family trust but also those like them. Having a myriad of colorful dresses and space to buy even more whenever she wants. Those things she does were simply just hobbies to spend the day. She has become familiar with all of the pianos’ keys, being able to play almost any song she ever wished to play. She was a jack of all trades when it came to sophisticated talents. 

Sophia was pressed against him, spending time and being comfortable with C.C took a long time, her being unsure of what to think of this strange and tall man who her father always kissed and held his hand. Her early childhood consisted of tutors, nannies, and the maids making sure that she was alive and fed well. They took care of her before leaving her. To have this new and strange man come into her life and not leave after a certain amount of time, she was wary when it came to becoming attached to him. 

Now, she loved him. And he loved her. His heart grew a few sizes bigger the day she called him Step-Father. One of the best days of his life. 

It was a quarter past noon when the house phone rang. One of the many things that Ricky has done with this house was stripping it away from any modern technology. All of the phones were landlines, there was no signal the moment you stepped through the front door (the closest thing to signal was in the garden or on the balcony). Even the television was old-fashioned. It didn’t have a remote, C.C had to stand up and turn on the TV and turn the dial to flip the channel. C.C was convinced that the reason why Ricky had these types of objects in place in his home was the old television shows he would watch, he convinced himself that those shows portrayed the ‘perfect family’ --  _ the American Dream on the Screen.  _

He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Charlie.” It was Ricky. “There’s been a change in plans. I’m going to get home a bit earlier. I’ll bring something for Sophia and you soon.” His grin was audible. 

C.C lets out a breath of relief. What he would do to have Ricky come home early every single day. To have him home safe and sound. “Alright. I’ll tell the cook to put your plate back.”

“I’ll see you soon,” the monster says with the softest tone. “I love you.”

The tall man smiles to himself. “I love you too, Ricky.” He hangs up as he sees Sophia place her little project besides her to look up at him with those eyes. He always said that she looks just like her father. The slick black long hair that was always perfect and not a single strand out of place and the dark eyes that were just the abyss. “He’s coming back soon,” he says despite knowing that she heard the whole conversation. “I think he’s going to bring you a surprise.” C.C pats her head and she grins at the affection. “But don’t tell him that I told you that.” 

She giggles, putting her head on his arm as she slowly picks up her project to continue to work on it. “Okay,” she whispers as if it was a big secret. “Can you… read to me? Please?” she asks politely. 

C.C smiles softly at her. “Of course,” she says. 

Sophia gets comfortable next to him as he opens his mouth, reading off of the page he just started. Just for her. 

  
  
  


It was around four and Sophia had taken a nap on him. She had started to doze off at the part where the private detective was interviewing the victim’s wife and mistress in the same. No matter how many times he has read this book, he does not stop to judge this particular. C.C has been a detective and he knows better than to involve two of the victim’s lives into the same room. It was unprofessional and a hazard to not only the case but also the people involved with it. It was lucky that having the wife and the mistress in the same room did help to solve the case but if it was in a different situation, the wife would have shot the detective and then the mistress the same way she shot her husband. 

Something that he will never admit is that when he was still working for the police station before he abandoned the life he had built for himself to run away with Ricky, he was miserable. He did enjoy his work, he enjoyed unraveling the mysteries that were dropped on his desk in the case filed. But there was something about having to do it under the watchful eyes of his supervisor that made it simply unbearable. C.C always wanted to help people and he was particularly good at solving puzzles but after a few years of the routine of a briefing, circulating between getting coffee and sitting down at his desk to do paperwork with the occasional interview and visiting a scene, he had lost interest. He felt like he was just another cog in the machine. In the machine that says they are doing good but are just targeting the weakest and most vulnerable people in the community they were supposed to protect as well. 

C.C has seen his fair share of disturbing things, slowly becoming numb to the harshness that was around him. It wasn’t until he took up Ricky’s case that he ‘woke up’. He saw what his coworkers were doing and were not even a bit disturbed. He knew that in the academy that any person in law enforcement is supposed to have a strong stomach to handle whatever the cruelty of humanity could do but they were doing more. They were acting as if they had no sympathy. They didn’t bat an eye, simply moving on with their lives and getting a beer after. That was what woke him right up and his communication between Ricky and him started.

Letter after letter came and were exchanged. It was better than phone calls and emails. With every single stroke of a pen, C.C melted for the monster like styrofoam under the heat. They face to face meetings were scarce but that was what made them so honest with each other. Only communicating through ink and paper and not being judged by their looks because frankly, C.C was not the most attractive man around. But here, he had the chance to show that he truly knows how to play the dangerous game: to love. 

The phone ringing made the tall man put down the book on the arm of the couch. Struggling to try and move Sophia off of his arm without waking her up. He sighs, slowly putting her head on one of the couch’s pillows before getting up to answer. 

“Hello?” he says, expecting it to be Ricky again. Instead, he was met with soft sobbing. His stomach churned. “Hello?” he says again, trying to get the person on the other side of the line to start speaking. His brain was telling him to calm down, that this is probably the wrong number situation or something.

“Charlie.” It was Legs. “Charlie I am so,  _ so  _ sorry. I should have called you the-- the second I got the news bu… but I was just so--” he was cut off by his own sobbing. The type of sobbing that comes with heavy teardrops rolling down someone’s face and a red face and shortness of breath. A sobbing that came with true grief and pain. 

The color drained from his face, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He didn’t notice that his step-daughter had woken up, her dark hair still as neat as before her slumber, and was standing next to him. “What happened?” the words almost caught in his throat. “Did… did something happen to Ricky? Or-- Or Night?” he stampers. 

His cousin takes in deep breaths after a few short seconds of sobbing. “I forgot to tell you,” he whispers, apologizing. “I should have told you last night. I’m  _ so  _ sorry. I--” 

C.C grips the handset tightly. “Spit it out, Logan,” he snaps, dreading what might come out of his cousin’s mouth. 

“Your mother died, Charlie,” he stutters out. 

His heart stops. The words slowly sink into him so he can process it. Despite that, he felt the words land in his stomach and slowly twist his organs tightly. His hands grow limp and clammy, slowly letting the handset go to it. It clattered against the table but it fell to deaf ears. His legs giving out from under him, his knees hitting the marble floor under him. His heart started beating again at the realization. C.C was taking in quick and shallow breaths, trying to force the breath that he had lost. His hands were wrapped around his mouth, tears growing in his eyes at the words echoing in his skull. 

“The funeral is tomorrow,” he heard Legs murmur over the phone, the handset hanging off of the table, still connected as it swings around near his ear. “It’s at 6. The will-reading will be at 9--” and before could continue with his blabbering, he was cut off.

Sophia had picked up the dangling handset from off the edge of the table and hung up for her step-father. Her small hands were placed on his shoulder, but they were cold and numb to C.C. like the tv static he would take up to at three a.m. 

This is a pain that he cannot bear. A pain that he never imagined feeling so early. Guilt filled him as if he was at the bottom of an hourglass. He shouldn’t speak of pain when he’s the one who chose to run away, chose to fake that break-in, and to disappear into the night while holding a killer’s hand. He can only imagine that the pain his mother felt is ten times worse than the one he’s experiencing. He’s getting his dues, he’s getting what he deserves. He deserves to be the last one to find out. 


	3. Ghosts That Haunt the Guilty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick chapter. sorry.

The past few minutes were a blur to him. All he remembered was his tiny step-daughter pulling him up the stairs, leading the way so he could lay down in bed to feel better until Ricky got home. But when he got into their bedroom, he didn’t lay down. He sat on his side of the bed, slumped over. C.C knew that he was crying, the tears rolled freely down his face without even blinking. His head was filled with sand, a daze fell on him as time slipped through his fingers. 

Almost four years he had spent away from his mother. Minerva Madej was a kind woman. Tall and thin with cheekbones that can cut an apple in half but she was those women who will hand you her umbrella in the middle of a storm and run home without it just to make sure you’re warm and dry. C.C grew up watching her put others before herself and as she grew older, she saw the sparkle in her eyes fade away. Like a dying star. 

When Ricky got home, he was expecting Sophia and C.C standing by the door like they usually do, to kiss and hug him and he would hand them something nice. He had gotten a doll for his sweet little daughter and a box of C.C’s favorite dessert from his favorite bakery. But he was greeted by a maid’s panicked face, stuttering that something happened and that he was upstairs. He handed her the doll and box of dessert before running up the stairs. Dread filled him. Images of what he might walk into fill his head. He knows that he has a dangerous lifestyle and because of it, he doesn’t take him or his daughter with potential enemies around. They are a secret that is worth protecting. 

  
  
  
  


C.C had cried himself dry. He was sitting on his bed, his lover holding his hand as his step-daughter was holding his arm, hugging it like a way to cling onto him. As if he might drift away and leave them behind. He lets out a long breath, one that hurt his lungs and chest. His heart was as raw as his eyes, having gone through all those emotions he never thought he would have to experience so early. He felt Ricky squeeze his hand. “I have to call Legs.” It was the first thing he said after he finally was able to calm himself down. “The funeral is tomorrow and I--” 

The monster shushes him, soft and caring for him. “It’s okay.” He says. “You lay down and I’ll call him.” 

The ex-detective shook his head, opening his mouth to protest despite feeling so emotionally drained and laying down does sound really nice. He was interrupted by the phone ringing on the nightstand next to them. Ricky groans as he picks it up. “Hello?” 

“It’s pretty rude to hang up on your cousin when your mom died-- Oh hey, Ricky. Is Charlie there?” Legs blabbered on, sounding breathless. 

Ricky groans, hating the fact that this is the cousin of the love of his life but also the person his twin brother decided to open a business  _ and  _ sleep with. “He’s here. But he… he needs time to process the bomb you dropped on him!” his voice slowly raising, getting annoyed by his whole existence even over the phone. C.C snatched the phone from his hand. 

“The funeral is tomorrow, right?” he spoke in a low voice. His whole body was limp and he felt as if he could just close his eyes and fall asleep sitting down. He clears his throat, eyes stinging by how much he had cried. “What time?” 

Legs lets out a sound that can only be described as a moan of embarrassment. “I… Charlie. I don’t know how to tell you this but, uh… your sister is the one that’s planning the funeral.” 

C.C blinks, letting out a harsh breath through his teeth. “What? Caroline is the one planning it? It’s a miracle she didn’t track me down and personally send me a letter saying that I’m not invited to  _ our  _ mother’s funeral.” he says, bitterness lacing his words. 

“Hey. She called me yesterday and all she said that it’s going to be a small funeral,” he explains. “She even invited Oscar-- yeah, she’s expecting it to be so small that she even invited the bastard of your brother… don’t tell him I said that.” Legs said. 

“She invited Oscar?” he says, standing up from the bed, outraged by the communication his little sister had with his older brother. “She  _ invited  _ him. I didn’t even know you have to be invited to go to a fucking funeral.” -- Sophia slaps her hands over her ears-- “Especially your own mother’s!” he says, pacing around with the phone tight in his hand, so angry that he couldn’t even feel his heartbeat. 

Legs says, “That’s all I know. I already told you the time for it. If you wanna show up. With you being, you know, ‘dead’ or whatever.” 

C.C stops pacing, softly kicking the rug from under his feet as the shame fills him again. “Of course I’m going to show up.” 

“You are?” his cousin asks, not bothering to hide the fact that he was genuinely surprised by that decision. “I mean, yeah, uh. See you there?”

“See you there, Logan,” C.C huffs, hanging up the phone as he rubs his eyes.  _ I’m going back _ , he thinks.  _ I’m going back, _ he realizes as he looks up at his new family. Ricky was staring at him with those dark dark eyes that can swallow the sun and C.C would head first into that abyss just to feel the darkness he knows loves him unconditionally. Hopefully this condition doesn’t spit him out in disgust. 

Ricky stands up, reaching to hold his hands. Rough and calloused over the years of hard work he has done to climb himself to the top, comfortable enough to stay there yet working twice as hard to stay and make his family happy and warm. He throws him a comforting smile, in hopes for him to relax enough for him to open up. In the years of their relationship, he understood that the past was the past and he didn’t have to ask questions. He knew next to nothing about C.C’s family, excluding the off-hand comment about his dad or brother. But nothing about that relationship. And he understood that it was time to let go. C.C does not owe him an explanation. Ricky gave his a long time ago, but doesn’t need one. 

“You have a sister?” he asks. 

C.C smiles at him, squeezing his hands. “I do. And I have to go to that funeral,” he says. “I know that I’m not supposed to blow my cover but this is my mother. I… I haven’t seen her since before I started living with you,” he explains. “And I… I owe her. She was at  _ my  _ funeral. It’s only fair that I go to hers.” He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut as he thinks and tries to calm his wavering voice. 

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he says, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles. It was such a nice gesture this morning but now it becomes something sour and bitter on the soul. “And we’re going.” 

The tall man’s eyes widened. “What? Ricky-- no.” 

Ricky shakes his head. “Charlie, dear. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I have to be there with you in times like these.” He looks up his lover. “You were there for me when my mother died. So I have to be there for you.” Ricky touches his shoulder, rubbing it as he stares at him. 

He lets out a sigh as he drops his head, his forehead bumping into the shorter man’s. It was a sweet gesture he didn’t do often but needs to remind himself to do it more often after this is over. C.C’s hair tickles the shorter man’s hairline just a bit, a feeling that he will miss when this moment is over. “Okay,” he whispers as he lifts his head back up. “I know where the funeral is going to be,” he says. “It’s where we went when my dad died. And I’m assuming the same place they went for my funeral.”C.C rubs underneath his eyes, his skin aching just a bit at the sudden raw friction. 

The monster nods and kisses his knuckles. “I’ll go call the restaurant to cancel our reservation,” he says as he lets go of his hands and exits the room the only way Ricky Goldworth knows how to: once leaving, he left an empty space where he was supposed to be. 

C.C sighs, his body deflating as he sits back down on the bed, placing his elbow on his knees and his head in his hands. Running his fingers through his mess of a hair, he had realized that he’s going to see his siblings again. The last time he saw them it was Oscar’s wedding and Da’s funeral. They didn’t really have a nice conversation. Oscar being a bastard and bullying Caroline, Caroline being a lightweight and bullying C.C and so on and so forth. A hell cycle worthy to be in Dante’s Inferno. 

He flinches, snapped out of his not-so-good remedicing by the tug of his shirt. Sophia was still sitting down, her other hand was still covering her right ear. “Are you done saying foul words?” she asks. 

C.C was never the type to use strong language, especially around children. That anger was bigger than him, shame filling him up like a water balloon. He nods, holding her small hand in his long, thin ones. “I’m sorry you heard me use those words,” he apologized. He learned a little bit too late in life that the reason he’s the way he is because he never got the apologies that would have fixed him enough to be a functional adult. Now, whenever he does something wrong, he does what the adults in his life should have done when they made a mistake. 

His step-daughter shakes her head. “I understand.”

_ That word _ . He smiles at her. 

She tilts her head curiously. “Who died?” she asks. 

That’s the thing about kids, he had realized when he watched this girl slowly grow up before his tired eyes. They’re incredibly blunt. His smile fades away, the words hit him like stones in the face but doesn’t flinch. For her sake. “My mother,” he says. 

She nods. “Was she nice?” she asks. 

The thing was that he wanted to say  _ yes _ . Of course she was nice, she was his mother and she was certainly kind. But there is such a thing as being so kind that you’re cruel. He nods. “She’s… she was a great baker. Made most of her pies and cakes from scratch. She taught my sister how to make a loaf of bread and she almost burned the house down,” he says as he smiles at the memory. The smell of smoke lingered in their clothes and sofa for a month after that. 

Sophia smiles when he smiles but it fades away when he stops. “I’m sorry,” she comforts. 

He shakes his head again. “I’m sorry you never got to meet her,” said C.C. “She would have loved you.” He pats her head softly and she giggles. “Ma always wanted a granddaughter.” The most embarrassing thing was that he wasn’t supposed to be the one with a child. Everyone assumed that it was his sister that would be married off to some wealthy man and open up a childcare center after having her own litter of children. Who knows, maybe that’s what happened in the past four years being ‘dead’. 

A Ricky Goldsworth exit is almost as grand as his entrances. When he leaves he does leave a vacuum, a gaping space that can only be filled by his presence. As he came back into his bedroom, he undoes the top three buttons of his crisp white shirt. “Sophia, dear. I think it’s best if you go on and wait outside,” he says as he offers his hand so she can take it. And she does. He leads her out of the room. “We have to have a conversation. An adult conversation.” The little girl nods. “Go on and take the doll I had set on your bed.” He kisses the top of her head before sending her off. 

As she closes the door behind her, Ricky sits down next to C.C. He took his hand in his, placing his head on the tall man’s shoulder in hopes to comfort him the best he could. “So how are we sneaking into your mother’s funeral?” he asks. The question itself was bizarre. 

The tall man shrugs. “I don’t want to say disguises but it might be our best option,” he says. “Might have to pull out my old coat and have to pretend to be part of the press.” he jokes. 

“Press? Was your mother Princess Diana’s fourth cousin or what?” he jokes back. It was macabre to joke about the death of your lover’s mother but it seems that it was the best way he could support him. 

C.C lets out a sigh, rubbing his face with his free hand. “I can’t believe I have to sneak back into my old life. Why couldn’t my mother die first instead of my father? At least I would have sneaked in to dance on his grave.” 

Ricky lifts his head. “... So are we doing this?” he asks, to make sure that the man that he loves is aware that this might be the end of ‘dead’ life. That all the planning that took months will all go to waste. But he knows that if he was in Charlie’s position, he would have come back too just to wish his mother a goodbye. 

With a strong nod, it was done. 


	4. Operation Code Name: Dead Mom.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raspberry Pink octopus and coffee. O.C is a dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters are going to take a bit longer to upload since they're going to be longer as well. Have fun.

The funeral home owner was not surprised to see her again. Caroline was sure that the Tinsley’s were dropping dead like flies was the reason this funeral home was still open. _ Angel’s Grace Funeral Home  _ has been open since the 50’s and because of it, all of the Tinsley had kicked the bucket and come here. Caroline was probably going to die and her body be processed here as well in a couple of years. Or maybe next month. Who knows, her family’s last name is slowly dying anyways. 

Caroline had been awake since 3 a.m, emotionally preparing herself for her cousin Logan “Long Legs” Madej to show up and cry a river over her mother’s casket and him getting himself so drunk that he would rip up the will from the family lawyer’s hands because he’ll go through the five stages of grief. 

It was now three p.m and she turned on the coffee machine. She knows that it’s probably going to be just her, Fran and Legs that are going to be there. Her other cousin was all across London filming some video and he can’t wiggle himself out of his contract for now. He did say that he wanted to come, and Caroline believed him. Shane wasn’t really close to his Aunt Minerva but he could mourn the same way a friend could-- just basic sympathy. Even more than her own brother anyways. But hey, they do say that three is a crowd. 

She had to be there to prepare everything. Just to get everything ready. She didn’t expect many people but it did make her feel better to keep herself busy. Fran had told her that it was okay to not process her emotions right now. And Caroline knew that but it still felt strange when she went to the bathroom and tried to force herself to shed a few tears but nothing came out. 

Caroline sighs as she sits down, pressing down her black sundress. She squeezes her folded sunglasses in her hand, lingering and almost wanting to break them just to feel something. She didn’t cry when her father died. In fact, she got home and drank so much she felt dead the next morning. She didn’t say it outloud but she was happy that Vincent “Vinny” Tinsley was dead. He was a cruel bastard who didn’t deserve his lovely wife. A veteran who needed therapy but denied himself just to feel like he was still in his younger days of glory. 

But the only funeral she cried at was for her brother. It took her a long time to accept the fact that he was dead. She didn’t shed a single tear as she went home; not until she stepped inside her home and sobbed her lungs out. Grief is a terrible thing to experience, especially the grief of the uncertainty.

It was almost four years ago when she went to visit her dear older brother since she was in the area and when she got to the address she was handed to, he wasn’t there. If there was a note that said that he had run out to pick up dinner and the door being locked it would have been fine and waited patiently for him. But it wasn’t. The wooden door was busted in and inside everything was a mess. _ There was a struggle,  _ she thought as she dropped the box of muffins she had brought and not only that. A fire was consuming a corner in the living room. A corner where the red string and pictures that were pinned into the corkboard was being swallowed by the fury of flames. She had found the fire extinguisher in the kitchen. The fire had burned everything in that spot of the apartment and eaten the corkboard alive. Caroline called the cops when she saw that the window in her brother’s bedroom was broken from the inside and the fire escape’s ladder was pulled down. _ He shouldn’t have gone that far _ , she thought-- she hoped when she saw that there was also a struggle in the bedroom. 

He was considered missing for a solid month before Caroline had started losing hope. There was no use in waiting around for his body to wash up in the river. She knew that her older brother’s line of work was dangerous, he was the best detective in the area and probably would have made it farther if it wasn’t for having a target on his back. Who knows which monster pulled the trigger to blow his brains out? Or stabbed him? Or whatever gruesome way they ended his life. She didn’t dwell too much on it as she moved on after a long time of mourning. 

Caroline hugs the jacket in her lap, the leather cool against her skin. She didn’t flinch when Fran took off her hat from her head. “It’s rude to wear hats indoors, hun,” she says, her voice teasing the line of joking. 

A smile wavers on her face. “I know. I just forgot. I have terrible bed hair,” she says as she smooths down her hair with her hand. “And I look great in these types of hats.” Caroline slips on the sunglasses on to her head, rubbing the leather material of her jacket. This jacket is older than her and it’s her prized possession. Despite it being too big on her, she still takes care of it like it was made of diamonds and emeralds. 

Fran sits down next to her, her black suit hugging her frame beautifully. Slipped onto her skin like it was made for her. And it was. Tailored with expertise for her job as an art museum presenter and auctioneer. Looks matter when you are selling art for the sake of money laundering. “And now… we wait.”

She nods, “We wait.” 

====

“Wait.” 

“What?” Ricky asks, glancing back at his lover through the reflection of the full length mirror. They were well dressed, ready to go to the funeral. All black, not a flash of a white shirt or a colorful tie in sight. 

C.C runs a hand through his hair. “How are we going to do this? Am I going to walk in and act as if we didn’t fake a  _ break in  _ and  _ my murder _ ?” he asks. 

“Charlie, dear, your mother died. I think it’s appropriate to go to her funeral,” Ricky says. For this ‘operation’ (if he can call it that), there’s no chauffeur to drive them around. He didn’t think that he should include his employee’s in a family matter like this. Especially C.C’s family’s matter. This is beyond private than usual. “I’m sure that your sister will forgive… you?” Even he was uncertain about that as he spoke slowly, realizing that it does sound like she might not. 

“This is me ‘dying’, Ricky,” he says with air quotes. “It’s not me ripping her favorite doll’s head off.” C.C rubs his face, thinking this over. This feels like he's stepping to the worst idea he’s ever had. The minutes before the disaster. “... I don’t want my years of hiding to go to waste. Everything we planned and worked for wasted away for--” He stopped talking when Ricky kissed him softly. A quick peck was enough for C.C’s brain to freeze up. 

The shorter man sighs, his hands on his lover’s shoulder and feeling the expensive material that he bought for him as a christmas present. He pulls away, smiling at the sight of his slightly pink and flustered face. “This is important to you,” he whispers as he rubs his arms. “We’re going. Love means sacrifice.”

C.C blinks at him, leaning down to kiss him again and feels himself fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of the monster. Not pulling him in; but luring him into the inescapable darkness. 

And isn’t that a way to go. 

“Where did you hear that? Some italian movie?” he teases as he pulls away, holding the monster’s hands. They were rough from work but there were no claws to be found. 

Their tender moment was interrupted by their sweet little daughter standing at the foot of the stairs. She had her hair down in that slick style, elegant like the porcelain dolls she always loved. Not a single strand of hair out of place. But instead of her usual blush pink dresses or her sky blue skirts, she wore a black dress. Long sleeved, long skirt that reached right under her knees with a frilly collar and big pink bow. Sophia was holding onto one of the many arms of her stuffed raspberry pink octopus. 

Ricky lets go of C.C’s hands. “What are you doing?” he asks, genuinely confused. “We were going to let you stay here.” He says. That was the plan, she was going to be babysat by the maids (he’s going to pay them overtime of course). He doesn’t want her involved in something as dangerous as this. They’re already breaking C.C’s cover, the last thing he wants is for her to be at risk as well. 

Sophia looks up at him. “I want to go,” she states. 

“Sweetie, it’s a funeral,” he says, confused that a ten-year-old wanted to go to a funeral. He would understand if it was an art museum or a stroll in the park but this is a place where people will cry and sob their lungs out. And she knows that. She was seven years old when his mother passed away and she understood that it’s a place for mourning. 

She nods. “I want to go,” she repeats, hugging her stuffed octopus. A gift that C.C gave her on the first birthday they spent together after he moved in with them. It was sweet that she considers it her prize position and still sleeps with it. “Step-Father said that his mother always wanted a granddaughter. I am that granddaughter.” 

It took every shred of sheer will for C.C to not laugh not only at her tone but also the look on Ricky’s face when he turned to look at him, puzzled and confused. Too many things to say but not sure where to start. It’s not the first time his daughter has made him speechless and it certainly won’t be the last. He throws his hands up in defeat. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go. We need to pick something up. We can’t go empty handed.” He walks away, unsure what to feel when it comes to do with what just happened. Regardless, he is happy that she considers C.C family.  _ I forgot that she owned that black dress.  _

The tall man laughs when his lover steps outside to get the car ready, feeling his step-daughter hold his hand with her own tiny one. Somehow, he shouldn’t be smiling on his way to his mother’s funeral.

  
  


===

He was waiting in his car, looking at the time intently on his watch. Oscar was many,  _ many  _ things but him being tardy was never one of them. He was always on time. Never too late, never too early. The one time he was early was in the academy and he was yelled at by his professor, calling him a ‘kiss up’ and a ‘try hard’. After that, he always comes on time. 

Two more minutes and he can go in. He didn’t know how long he’s going to stay. He truly has nowhere else to go afterwards anyways. Maybe he should stay the whole three hours before reading. He knows what’s on the will. He talked to the family lawyer the year Charles died. When he means ‘talked’ it was a conversation after sex in bed while smoking a cigarette. Him seeing her again is something he is not looking forward to. But at least he knows who’s getting the house. 

Oscar rubs his face, his hands sore from his daily work outs that instead of being two hours long had tripled in amount of time he’s spent at the gym. They gave him the day off when he mentioned that his mom passes away and maybe even the week. Oscar is going back to work on Monday for sure. He doesn’t want to seem weak to his coworkers. He climbed his way to the top by having that strong and ‘always angry’ face. Maybe he will pick up that week off, just to work out that excess energy that was steaming under his skin, pumping his blood like a good run.

His watch chimes, he gets out of his car and walks into the funeral home after locking his car, waiting to hear the lock snap three times. A habit. Everything about him was a habit. He is a habit. Everything was routine for him. Even the death of his family members seemed like a routine. 

Inside was cold and he saw three people inside. One was an older woman talking to his sister and the other was a young black woman with her hair pinned back into a bun swearing a black suit.  _ She isn’t family _ , he thinks but doesn’t say anything as he wipes his feet on the door mat. 

The older woman walks away from his sister and walks past him to leave.  _ She’s a funeral home employee, _ he thinks.  _ Kind of silly to have an elderly person work in a place that they might appear in by the end of the year. _ Now, he admits that it’s cruel to think that, but he can blame that thinking on his lack of nicotine and grief. 

“You’re here,” Caroline says, walking up at him. Anyone would expect these two to hug, to share a moment of vulnerability with your sibling to mourn the death of your mother. “Empty handed as always.” she says, hands on her hips. 

Oscar narrows his eyes at her, suddenly remembering why he doesn’t spend time with her. 

“Don’t worry. I knew that this would happen. There’s cookies near the coffee machine,” she says. “Hopefully you don’t spike it just to make yourself feel better.” 

“At least I’m on time,” he says, pointing a finger at her. 

She rolls her eyes. “Oscar Cole being late is a sign of the end times,” she says as she turns on her heel. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable on the ten chairs I have laid out. I thought of you, you know. I thought you might invite all of your ex-wives to mourn with you.” 

He sighs, his patience already draining. But he does sit down, a seat away from the well-dressed woman. She was attractive, with soft features except for her eyes. Her eyes were sharp all around the edges, with one look she might shatter windows and set off car alarms in the ten mile radius around her. “... she hasn’t changed one bit,” he pretends to think out loud to start a conversation with this woman. 

The young woman doesn’t even look up from her phone to answer. “It’s pathetic to hit on your sister’s girlfriend at your mother’s funeral,” she says, typing away.

“Now I pity you instead of the dead,” he says, not allowing himself to internalize those words. “You’re dating the wrong Tinsley sibling.” 

“With that sentence, I’m sure that I’m not,” she says. “There has to be some law placed for FBI agents to be homewreckers.”

O.C lets out a hum. “Try to take that up with lawmakers then.” he sighs. “I’m Oscar Cole. O.C for short.” 

For the first time since this ‘conversation’ started, she looks up and he immediately regrets it. She  _ was  _ able to shatter glass with those eyes and he had to hold in a sigh. She was beautiful. A beauty that would make any artist smitten and bow down to this muse sent straight from Olympus. She didn’t look like any of his ex-wives but she did have an energy that matched with them: a confidence in not only her looks but in her whole being. “I’m going to say this as kind as I can because you’re probably in pain somewhere under that look that makes you a target for a revenge drive-by:  _ fuck off. _ Go cry in the bathroom like a man or something.” with that, she stands up. 

The look of sheer surprise veiled his face and there was no way to stop it, watching her leave to make herself some coffee. And that smitten, love sicken sigh and feeling that he felt coming turned into hatred and disgust. Jealousy filled his empty heart as he stared at his sister. 

Fran stands next to Caroline as she makes herself some coffee, her girlfriend was munching on the cookies she had brought. It was a small tin box that she had brought from home. She was planning on sharing them with her cousin. Legs was supposed to bring the wine. One thing that her mother always asked her is to share a bottle of wine when she died, a way to send her off to the afterlife in a cheerful and hopeful way. It also didn’t hurt that they all seemed to love wine in this family. 

“Who else is missing?” Fran asks as pours sugar in her coffee. 

Caroline swallows her piece of cookie. “Logan. He’s going to be late though,” she says. “He texted me a while ago. He has some business stuff to take care of downtown.” 

Fran blows on her coffee. “What does he do again?” 

“He owns a bar with some guy,” she says. “They’re doing well enough. He took the news the hardest actually,” Caroline explains as she looks up at her dear girlfriend. “He was an only child growing up and he was close to me and my mother because his family was always busy. He lived with us for a while until he left to work for some company.” 

Those were the days where she was alone. She was in high school when her brother’s were gone to become some big shot FBI agent or a fantastic detective, she only had Logan, who was on the brink of graduating and moving out. Never been the popular one, she ate lunch in the library and befriended the librarians and spent her time in the child development section. There she decided to become someone who wanted to care for children. To love and protect and teach them. To be there for them. She didn’t want other children to be forgotten like she was. 

Fran hums and she turns around when she hears the sound of a car parking nearby. She peeks out the window, pulling the dainty curtain beside to see a slick black car, the type that she is familiar with because she’s seen the people who buy the artwork she’s been selling. “Is that your cousin?” she asks, tapping her girlfriend on the shoulder. She didn’t know much of Caroline’s family so this might be something normal for them. 

Caroline stands on her tip-toes to peak out the window. “No?” she says, uncertain. “I doubt that Logan got a new car.” She narrows her eyes, trying to see through the dark tinted windows of the car. Something in her soul was telling her that everything is going to go both wrong and so right. 

  
  
  


“Are you nervous?” Ricky asks, fixing his hair on reflection of the visor. 

C.C lets out a huff that shouldn’t have made him sound as nervous as he is right now but he’s a bit out of shape when it comes down to pretending. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he says sarcastically, waving his hands around as if he doesn’t have a box of donuts in his lap. “My sister might _ stab me  _ with a plastic spoon, that’s what.” 

The monster laughs, a laughter that echoes from the inside of his ribcage and bounces up his throat to spill out that beautiful noise that makes C.C so happy. “I doubt that she’s going to stab you. She’s your sister.” 

“And Nick is your brother,” the tall man reminds him. “And see how you two get along.” 

Ricky narrows his eyes at him, unimpressed by the low-blow comparison as he slips on his dark sunglasses on his face. “That’s not a fair comparison. Me and Nick always tried to kill each other as kids.” 

C.C slips on his own sunglasses as Sophia, in the backseat, slips on her own small, sparkly cat eyed sunglasses. 

“Relax, Charlie dear,” he says. “Your sister is not going to stab you.” 


	5. Black is the Coldest Color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SIBLING FIGHT!!

Cutting to a scene in a movie is nothing like in real life because for starters life isn't a movie. Life is a continuous camera shot where you either give it your all or you mess up and everyone is watching. Or not. Scenes tend to be edited and you cannot edit life and you have to live every single second through. 

But here, C.C swore that he was living life like a movie. The steps between the car and the funeral home’s front door was a blur, too nervous to remember the before and too nervous to never forget the now as he’s standing in the doorway. 

You could hear a pin drop by how silent it was. Maybe it was a silence of surprise or shock or whatever feeling that was stirring around in the building. In the doorway, he was standing wearing all black except for that hideous tan trench coat that didn’t have a single wrinkle, as if it was ironed with the expertise. Not only that, he was with someone else.  _ Two  _ someone-else.

Caroline knew that it was him. Of course, she would know how her older brother looked. Even with those dark sunglasses on his face, he still looked like C.C. She steps away from Fran, staring at the tall figure with wide eyes and her mouth slightly opened by horror. The horror of seeing the dead standing there. Some of the color drained from her face as she looked up at him, hand shaking to cover her mouth. A wave of emotions flooded her body, it overwhelmed her and made her feel so insignificant. Just like Charlie. 

C.C takes in a deep breath through his nose, slipping off his dark sunglasses as if he was taking off a mask to reveal himself. He blinks as a bittersweet smile grows on his mouth. “Hello, Caterpillar,” he says. 

“You’re alive,” she says in awe as she steps closer towards him. She never thought she would see him again, only her memories or as the ghost in her dreams where she feels the lowest. “You’re  _ alive _ ?” she questions, taking a step back as she thinks this over. His body was never found so there was a possibility that her brother was alive. “You’re alive!” Anger rising from her as she throws herself at him.

Fran wraps her arms around her girlfriend to pull her away from tackling this man. Caroline claws at him as she grits her teeth. Her white sunglasses shattered on the floor, the lends popping out on the floor between her ‘dead’ brother and her struggling to choke him.

C.C takes a step back when his sister lunged towards him. “Yes, I’m alive! I’m standing in front of you, am I not?” he says, sounding annoyed. 

“Don’t you dare get snarky at me when you  _ faked your death _ , Charlie!” his sister says as she pulls herself from the young woman’s arms. “Let me go, Fran. I’m fine.” They share a lingering look before the woman lets go. Caroline clears her throat and fixes her dress. “I’m fine,” she says calmly before going to try and lunge at him again, stopped in mid-air by her girlfriend again. “You fucking asshole! I mourned you! And you have the nerve to come to mom’s funeral?” she wiggled away from the arms holding her back. 

She steps up at him, jabbing her finger at his chest. “Why are you here?” 

He flinches at the faint pain being inflicted. “I didn’t think I needed an invitation to my own mother’s funeral, Caterpillar.” 

“Don’t call me that,” she says, crossing her arms at him. “We're not children anymore. We hold each other responsible for our actions. I’m pretty sure that us faking our deaths is pretty high in the list of things to not do,” Caroline glares at him. 

C.C didn’t know what to say, staring with wide eyes. He truly didn’t know what to expect when he stepped through that door. Maybe a bit of blood shed and her pulling his hair as they get into a fight the same way they used to as kids but he didn’t expect her to not only be furious but also rational. Caroline was the least rational person on the face of the Earth; he had an argument with her about some comic book character that ended up with a screaming match that left them voiceless for a week. But here she was logical and  _ reasonably  _ mad. Which annoyed C.C enough to realize that she had grown up in those years of his ‘death’. 

Grief makes a person grow up. 

C.C offers her the box of donuts without saying a word. And with a huff, she took it, walked over to the table where the coffee machine and half-finished cookies were. Caroline sighs as she holds the edges of the table, leaning over it with her head down as she thinks. This couldn’t be happening, she screams on the inside. This shouldn’t be happening. He was dead and now he was not. All of the emotions, all of the anger and grief that she went through was discredited and thrown aside when he appeared. All that mourning gone to waste. She knows that she should be happy, hugging him and welcoming him with open arms because he was her favorite brother (don’t tell O.C) was alive and well. She knows that but all these emotions she’s feeling consume her like a wave pool pulling her down to the depths she cannot swim up to. 

She turns around, smoothing down her hair with one swift motion as she walks back to her dear older brother and says with the most polite smile she can force herself with right now: “I don’t know what to say. Welcome back? To your mother’s funeral?” she pronounces carefully with a sarcasm that didn’t match her kind demeanor. Caroline glances at the person standing right by his side.

This is the first time she ever took a good look at Ricky, who had his arm wrapped around C.C. With that little fiasco, now he knew why C.C was so nervous to come back. Regardless, he forces an even more polite smile on his face and extends his hand. “Hi. I’m very sorry for your loss,” he says, trying to sound sorry for this strange woman.

Caroline raises an eyebrow at him, taking his hand to shake. “You are?” 

He glances at the tall man standing next to him for a second. “I’m Ricky,” he introduces himself. “I’m Charlie’s lover.” 

Caroline's face was slapped by many emotions. She almost got whiplash at the sentence that flew out of this man’s mouth. This short man (yes, even she is taller than him) uttered those words with a calmness that she has to believe that this is not the first time he’s said that and that this relationship isn’t anything remotely new. This didn’t seem to be a fling or a go-go dancer hired to make her brother seem lonely. He dressed far too nice and had a look in his eyes that seemed to tell everyone in this room that he demanded attention, and not the inappropriate type that makes you undress him with your eyes. No, he was something else. 

Also, who says  _ lover  _ anymore in this day in age? Maybe some creep that follows her around when she’s doing a museum tour but not this twenty-something-year-old man. 

It was the second person that made Caroline take a double look and was certain that this younger man was not some go-go dancer. A little girl hiding behind C.C’s leg, shy and seemed startled by her yelling. The little girl was holding onto a raspberry pink octopus and it was adorable. She looked like the man that C.C held close. “Hi,” she says softly, leaning down to speak to her. “I’m Caroline. What’s your name?”

The little girl, no older than eight years old, takes out her hand to shake hers. “I’m Sophia,” her voice was as soft as flower petals and a summer breeze that bends the grass. “I’m his step-daughter.” 

The amount of control Caroline has over her face was astounding really. Her face twitched with surprise that she was holding back under the polite smile that she wore as she shook this little girl’s hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.” 

Sophia smiles the same way all children smile: a ray of sunshine. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she spoke as if she was told to rehearse that sentence over and over again just to get it right. 

Caroline nods. “Thank you, dear.” She stands back up straight, her hands on her hips. “It’s very nice to meet both of you. I do wish we could have in a… different way.” She gives her brother a look, a look that only they both could decode. “May I speak with my zombie brother?” she asks, placing her hand on Ricky’s shoulder, feeling him tense up just a bit before nodding. 

“Alright,” he says as he reaches over for the little girl’s hand. “I understand,” he says as he plants a quick kiss on Charlie’s cheek before walking away. 

Once they were out of earshot, Caroline grabs a fistful of his tan coat, drags him outside the funeral home, and slams the door shut so they can have a proper conversation. She takes three big breaths in before: “What the actual everlasting fuck?” 

C.C’s eyes widen. “Since when do you use that language?” he asks. 

“Ever since you ‘died’!” she whisper-yells. 

He throws his hands up. “Well I didn’t and now I’m here.” 

“Yes I can see  _ that _ !” she says, jabbing a finger at his chest. “And I would be fine with you faking your death and coming to Ma’s funeral if you didn’t--” Caroline stops herself with a sharp breath in through her slightly crooked teeth. “You got married?” 

C.C’s face twists in confusion. “No! Well… not yet anyways,” he says under his breath as he rubs the back of his beck. 

The Tinsley Gene is that they are very  _ very  _ good at solving puzzles, able to uncode things, and see everything from a different angle. Their dad was very good at solving crossword puzzles, O.C with riddles, C.C was great at pattern guessing, and Caroline with jigsaw and Rubik’s cubes. They had a particular talent for connecting the dots. “That’s where you’ve gone for all these years?” she accuses him, shoving his shoulder. “You… you ran off with some pretty face?” she stampers, trying to understand how  _ absurd  _ that was. 

“Hey, Ricky is more than ‘some pretty face’,” C.C defends, pushing his sister’s hand off of his shoulder. “But yes, I did… run off with him.” he confesses.

The look on her face was indescribable; it showed a shadow of fury, disgust in her eyes but it was a betrayal that poured off of his skin, oozing out of her pours that made C.C understand that this was the worst thing he has possibly done. She takes in the deepest breath she could, through her nose as her shoulder rises before exhaling: “You absolute piece of shit. You… pile of garbage!” she explodes. “What is wrong with you? You run off with some younger guy, leaving us-- leaving Ma and me and Oscar! I mourned you!” she says, pushing him again, but C.C barely budged because of his obvious height. “I couldn’t go back to work because I thought the-- the mafia made you some cement shoes somewhere in the bay but  _ nooo  _ you were off getting laid by a guy is-- to be frank --way out of your league.” Caroline was panting, her pale face was now red, making her freckles look far more darker.

Another Tinsley Gene was that they are quite hotheaded, anger slowly building until it explodes like in the cartoons with smoke whistling out of their ears. All of them were like that, with their father’s fury being the type that could shake the Earth and they were unlucky enough to inherit that. 

Caroline lets out a huff before slowly tucking back some stray strands of hair behind her ears and out of her face. With clearing her throat and fixing the ruffles on her dress before: “I’m okay. I’m okay.” 

C.C stares at her, some of the color drained from his face at the shock. He didn’t really expect all of this. Maybe a punch across the face and being strangled before being pulled away and continuing to grieve without looking at each other before moving on with their lives as if he didn’t just rise from his grave. And he always knew that Caroline was the type to say what’s on her mind, to never stutter about what she’s feeling. But here, she struggled to speak. She became tongue-tied, unable to articulate her emotions because all of them, all of the grief _ , already happened. _ She was done with them and all of those feelings suddenly came back to her in this second the moment Caroline laid eyes on him, breathing and standing in front of her when she was supposed to mourn her mother. 

“I’m sorry,” he spoke barely above a whisper. “But I did it for me. I didn’t want to involve you or Ma or Oscar-- wait, is O.C here?” C.C interrupts himself mid-apology. “Like he actually showed up?”

Caroline crosses her arms, eyebrows furrowed. “Uh, yeah. I thought him coming was the only surprise I was going to have to go through but as always, you made it about yourself. Like that ‘apology’ you were in the middle of making, asshole.” 

He suddenly remembers why he didn’t want to involve his family in his personal affairs. He rolls his eyes, “ _ Ugh _ . Well, I didn’t see him.”

“He’s probably in the bathroom crying after Fran rejected him,” she says, kicking a cigarette butt away with her shiny black heels. “He’s crying because my girlfriend told him to fuck off, not because his mom died.” 

That sentence alone made C.C do a double-take. He blinks slowly, “Oscar is here and he’s crying over being rejected… at a funeral… at our mom’s funeral?” he says slowly, trying to understand the stupidity that his brother had. “What is wrong with him?” 

“Exactly!” she says, finally able to complain about him with someone who actually knows him. “I mean after his fifth divorce I thought he was going to be able to pick up on the fact that he’s gross.” 

“I can’t believe that my tax dollars went to him,” C.C mumbles, rubbing his face. “He’s a-- a douchebag!” 

Caroline adds. “An asshole.” 

“Bastard,” the siblings mumbled at the same, shaking their heads in unison at their brother. 

There was a pregnant pause between them, sharing a moment that they both had missed dearly. Not just by the years when C.C was ‘dead’ but phases where they would just not talk to each other. The day that he went missing was the first time in a long while they planned to spend time together; willingly. Perhaps that’s why his disappearance hurt her the most. The hope that they were going to grow closer in ways they haven’t been in years. Honestly, they both had missed this. They missed being able to talk about anything, yelling at each other and pushing each other around because that’s what they do. That’s what family does. 

Caroline sighs, rubbing the skin under the small strap of her black dress, a comforting touch that she does when she’s deep in thought. “I’m sorry I said that about Ricky. He does seem nice. But I did mean what I said that he is way out of your league.” 

C.C chuckles. “You don’t think I know that? Have you looked at him?” 

She nods, eyes wide. “How does he get his hair and skin to look like that?” she asks, fascinated that her brother managed to have the chance to date someone as attractive as him. 

He shrugs. “Some Italian product and a lot of skincare routines,” he says casually as if they were talking over a cup of coffee. “He has a mini-fridge full of them in our bedroom that I can’t even look at without breaking out.” C.C jokes. 

The little sister smiles, scratching her skin just a bit. She enjoyed moments like these where they got along and it was quite sad that this had to happen under these circumstances that happened too far away from each other. She sighs, relaxing just a bit, staring at the pavement under them and the concrete crack that separates both of them. The crack alone was minuscule, insignificant in the great scheme of things but right now it felt too real and too big. A gap between them that separates them as if it was a canyon or an abyss, keeping them apart from each other on their own islands. She steps on a weed that was poking out of the gab, crunching it underneath her slightly-expensive heel. 

“So… your girlfriend is that girl that held you back?” C.C asks, always terrible at making small talk but genuinely caring for what he had to say. He’s trying to make up for the lost time. 

Caroline nods, blushing just a bit, and wants to blame it on wearing black with the sun out but it was a cloudy day. It might rain. It seems that the sky was mourning more than her. “Yeah,” she says, playing with her hair. “Fran. I met her a year after you, uh… died.” 

Her brother nods. “Well, she seems nice. Well dressed,” he says as he looks down a bit awkwardly. “And for the record, I do  _ not  _ make everything about myself.”

She laughs, throwing her head back. “Yes you fucking do!” she says. “You’re the middle child and an attention whore.” 

“Oh fuck you,” he says, throwing his own hands up in defeat. “You’re just jealous that you never got into the Academy.” 

“I didn’t want to go to your stupid police Academy. Or recruitment for the FBI. The last thing the world needs is another Tinsley in law enforcement,” Caroline says, hands on her hips. “I’m perfectly happy with kids and art for your information. Unlike you who ran away from us and your life.” 

He points a finger at her. “Hey, hey, wait. I chose to run off and I did it responsibly. I paid my debts and lease away and sold some of my stuff so when I was gone you didn’t have to donate all of my shit to Goodwill, Freckle Face. I was responsible enough to not leave everything up to you.” 

“I planned your funeral!” she stomps her foot like a child as if they were fighting over whose turn is it to play with the video game station. “Your apartment was on fire, Charlie!”

“Wait really? That wasn’t supposed to happen.” 

“There you go again, making everything about you--” she huffs, face turning red with annoyance. It seems as if ‘death’ hasn’t really changed him. 

“You’re the one that always starts shit,” he points out as they argue, slowly getting louder and louder, speaking over each other. True sibling love is yelling at each other until your throat is raw, they had both learned living in the same house for so long. And as they yell over each other, teeth cater a bit at the cool breeze that caresses them the same way their mother’s voice would call out their names to get them to behave. As if. Their mother is dead, to compare her voice is too far fetched, even for them. Realists who mourn with little to no hope. 

Their yelling was cut off when the funeral’s front door opened between them, O.C standing as the neutral but hated force that they shared like a doll. At least they knew how to share. 

  
  
  
  
  


Oscar had escaped into the bathroom the second he felt the jealousy slowly climb inside of him, rising to his throat like a snake squeezing-- suffocating. He locked the door, took off his jacket, and hung it on one of those hooks that were behind the door. The eldest Tinsley takes in a deep breath through his nose, the same way his father always told him to take. 

He knew that he had a problem, he wasn’t too ‘out-of-it’ to realize. But what to do when you know you’re a terrible person and can’t help yourself? Oscar runs a hand through his hair, staring at himself in the decent-looking mirror. He rubs the side of his face, feeling the sharp edges of his beard, feeling it burn the palm of his fairly smooth hands. He always claimed that he worked hard to get where he was in life but the only blemish on his hands was on his right, a thick line that was a clear cut. The scar was older than his sister, the first and only real scar that he had. 

Oscar squeezes his right hands before turning on the faucet to wash them. For the longest time, he always assumed that being the eldest sibling meant that he never had to get involved in his siblings’ lives. Hardly having to talk to them anyway because he was always far away, in experience and in age. It appears that he was wrong and that not every eldest of the children was a shut-in with ‘emotional processing issues’-- Charles’ words, not his. 

Oscar would like to say that he was fine. That all of his marriages failing meant that he was just him being more faithful to his work and his country. But he had a deep feeling in his chest, laying between his heart and his spine that it wasn’t that. He doesn’t think he’s a psychopath, despite his sister’s teasing. He cried while watching movies, a single tear was shed when he watched the first fifteen minutes of  _ Up  _ but besides that, nothing. Not even when his brother died.

He and Charles weren’t really close. The closest thing they ever did together was spend three hours locked in the same room after a failed fishing trip that ended with both of them dripping wet. So when he passed, the empty space that he and his brother had between them grew wider and colder. 

Oscar dries his hands and jumps when he hears a loud banging on the front door of the funeral. He freezes, looking around as he concentrates. Something has changed. He feels. Something has gone wrong. He has spent a significant amount of time in the FBI, as a victim specialist. It’s funny that the person unable to process emotions well is one of the best when it comes to comforting and helping those in need. He knows that it was silly but he has a feeling that people trust him, not just because of the badge but of something about him. 

He slips his jacket back on as he opens the bathroom door, looking around as he spots two other people. A young man and a little girl standing where the coffee machine was. Something was wrong about them, he thinks as he closes the door. It took him a second to realize that his sister wasn’t here. He spotted her outline outside through the glass of the funeral home’s front door. She was yelling but the words were not as clear as her body language, showing that she was annoyed and stressed at the silhouette of the person in front of her. A familiar feeling, an energy swallowed him as he walked past the two strangers, pushing the door open and his heart stopped.

“Charles?” he asked but he knew that it was him. A Tinsley has a specific look about them that mistaking him for someone else was impossible. Almost as impossible as C.C standing right here, alive and well. 

His brother’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, you are here. I thought that Caroline was being dramatic,” he says and their sister punches him in the shoulder. 

Oscar hops down the concrete steps, his face cold and as stoney as ever. His facial hair just a bit grey and silver to show that he had grown older, his tired eyes made C.C feel like he was staring at their father. May the son of a bitch rot in his grave. The grave that their mother now has to share because that was her dying wish. 

C.C tries to smile but he couldn’t when Oscar wraps his hands around the front of his iconic tan coat. “Hey, hey, hey. There’s no way we can punch each other at Ma’s funeral.” he stampers, putting his hands up in surrender and to show that he doesn't have a weapon on him. 

The eldest Tinsley grits his teeth. “The only reason I haven’t punched your face into a bloody pulp is that there is a child in there.”

“Who is his step-child, by the way,” Caroline adds, clearly showing that she was not choosing sides and was indeed enjoying the show, leaned against the railing that framed the steps up the door. 

“Stay out of it!” they snap at her in unison; and she just shrugs, looking at her chipped fingernail polish. 

The Tinsley brothers turn back to look at each other. “I know that this looks bad but I came back but I have the right to mourn. She’s… she was my mom too.” C.C says, grabbing the hand that was grabbing a fistful of his shirt. 

Another thing that Oscar was is being the most level headed of the three, his anger was far more under control than Caroline’s loud fury or Charles’ bone popping muttering. An anger that was cold and sharp like the snapping breeze of a blizzard, killing you slowly as it nips at your skin and turns you blue. He took another deep breath in through his nose, letting go of his brother’s coat and shirt before jabbing him in the stomach. 

C.C lands on the concrete, rubbing the place where he had knocked the air out of him. “I should have seen that coming,” he mutters with a pained expression. 

Oscar rubs his wrist and fixes his composure. “There is no need for you to be here,” he spoke in that monotone voice that he probably came out of the womb speaking in. “You’re not in the will.” 

“Big surprise that Oscar Cole checked what was on the will,” C.C says as he stands up, dusting himself off and fixing his shirt. He was lucky that his brother didn’t sock him in the face because he was sure that Ricky was going to have a  _ field red  _ day if that ever happened. “You sleazy wanna-be attorney.” That was a low blow, he can admit that. 

Unlike his siblings, O.C cannot roll his eyes. He said that it was an unnatural way to show displeasure in something. Even his sarcasm was stuck up and pathetic. Instead, he narrows them and hums. “I’m letting you stay here. For Ma’s sake and memory.” 

“ _ Letting _ me? I do not need permission to be at my mother’s funer-- ah!” C.C says, suddenly being picked up by the collar of his shirt again, his brother threatening to throw him across the parking lot. 

O.C gives him a stern nod. “Yes you do, String Bean.” And he drops his brother back on his feet. 

“Don’t call me that,” he says, annoyed that he kept that nickname.

Caroline snorts, pushing back her cuticles with her fingernails. “Wait… Charlie, why does she call you Step-Father?” she asks, wanting to keep this conversation going. This was the longest they’ve ever been in the same area without someone trying to stab each other and yelling until their voices gave out. Something she’s always wanted to complain about. It seemed that it was a privilege to spend time with them in a positive way. 

But one of them always had to ruin it. Oscar clears his throat, “We are not here to chit-hat. Our mother died and we need to head back instead. We’ve been out here for a suspicious amount of time.”

The youngest Tinsley rolls her eyes, sitting up with her hands on her hips. “Boo-hoo. Leave it to O.C to ruin our fun,” she groused. 

“Shut it, _ C.D, _ ” Charles said as he picks at the stray strand on his tan coat that he’s going to have to fix. It was the only thing he took from his past life that was worth keeping around. A trophy of all of the cases he had solved. He scrunches up his nose in self-aware disgust.  _ I sound like Pops,  _ he thinks and shakes the idea out of his head. 

His sister’s face turns pink at the mention of her initials. 

“And as much as I hate to admit it, O.C is right,” he says. “Ma wouldn’t want us wasting time like this-- wasting her time like this.” The ex-detective looks up at the greying sky. There was something that felt wrong about this day. Not only because he was at a funeral after he himself was presumed dead for the past four years but that everything had a stillness. As if this day would be forever locked in time to this event. It didn't make sense but there was a comfort in that mystery. He smiles when the breeze flicks his hair away. He never imagined he would be okay with leaving something unsolved in life. 

C.C goes up the steps, bumping his shoulder against his brother’s as he opens the door for his sister before stepping back inside. His brother was still standing outside, leaving him behind the same way O.C left them: in haste and no regrets. The eldest Tinsley stares up at the sky. Never once has he ever believed in a god, the world itself was too strange to be controlled by one singular being. No God could create a world filled with anarchy hidden under the illusion of organization. He stares at his hands, lifting them to take a quick sniff. 

When he feels that something was wrong, his instincts are usually right. There was something off about Charles and his new partner. The smell of expensive cologne filled his nose. The type that he knew that his brother could never afford. O.C has spent too much time being hyper-aware of his surroundings to not notice something odd. 

And there is something afoot here. 

  
  
  



	6. Not A Single Red Dime.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PERVERT and DONUTS and the inheritence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, last year sucked ass but now I'm back so get ready because this chapter is a loooong one (23 pages on google docs). Also, I'm gonna be taking a long time for the final chapter because school is about to start to bear with me y'all.

Sophia was munching on a cookie as she sat down, holding her octopus stuffie in her lap. She had it for almost four years now and it was her prized possession. It wasn’t the gold jewelry or the silk dresses or anything of sorts. It was the stuffed animal that C.C had gotten her in hopes that she would accept him as part of her and her father’s life. And she accepted it with glee, holding it for dear life as she sleeps with it and carries it everywhere she goes. It is her companion. 

She had finished munching when she saw that next to her there was a leather jacket and the pair of broken sunglasses. She picks them up, staring at them with sudden interest. Slipping them on as her own sparkly cat-eyed were placed on her octopus’ soft head, one of the lenses was cracked while the other popped up when Caroline was yelling at her Step-Father. The large sunglasses slip down from her small face, she pushes them up. Sophia was startled from the yelling that she hid behind her parents. She didn’t expect so much yelling at this funeral. 

The front door opened and she returned the broken sunglasses back onto the jacket as if she was the one that broke them and returned to stare at her stuffed octopus, playing with the bow on its large head. She never gave it a name, seeing that it was just a stuffed animal but somehow, when she stares at it’s large eyes she feels like it needs a name. An identity.

Ricky had fixed himself and C.C some coffee, knowing how he likes it. One of their very limited dates when they first started being together was this tiny coffee shop that he promised the then-detective that no one will spot them. He had watched the tall man make his coffee, not trusting anyone but himself to prepare it. Three creams and four sugars. The number three and four changed for him after that date. While Ricky was far more picky when it came to his coffee, he will tolerate this poor excuse for caffeine beans for his lover’s sake.

As he stirs the coffee in the styrofoam cup counter clockwise with the stirrer, taking a sip of it but freezing when he feels a pair of sharp eyes on him. It made goosebumps grow up his spine and spread on his shoulder blades like the blood running through his veins. He knows the eyes. Not personally but a connection. An instinct to search for those similar to him. A familiar sharpness. One that he has. 

He looked up, a woman was leaning against one of the pillars that held up the ceiling. Ricky would never be buried in such a place. He lived his early years filled with filth and grease and the last thing he needed was to die and go in a place worse than that. The woman was attractive, even he can admit that, with wide shoulders, sharp features and even sharper eyes. 

“You seem familiar,” the woman starts, her hair tilting slightly and a single curl shifts across her forehead with an elegance that bounce right off of each other. Like two tidal waves crashing and exploding, rain falling as a result of the impact. 

The monster hums, swallowing his coffee and trying to not make a grimace at the cheap taste. “That’s funny. I was about to say the same thing about you.” he bounces back placing the coffee on the table, right under his eyesight. Ricky has been in positions where he’s had to keep an eye on his drink when it wasn’t made by himself. Poison being the arrow that pointed at his head. 

The woman smiles, a smooth curve of her lip that he could only compare to a dagger ready to spill the blood of her enemies. Something that he can both appreciate and be weary of. “You seem like a man with taste,” she flatters but not in the way many other women had tried to flatter him so they can spend the night in his bed. No, she flattered the same way a salesman would charm the woman of the household to trick her to buy his shitty vacuum before hitting the next town over and changing his name. He should know, that was most of his early twenties. 

Ricky raises an eyebrow at her. “What makes you say that?” he asks, watching the coffee between them with his peripheral vision. 

Her eyes drop down to his shoes. “Those shoes are expensive enough to buy my car in the parking lot. And I have a pretty nice car.” 

He had a feeling that this woman used to smoke, her fore teeth sharp with biting down on pencils to force herself to quit the habit. Ricky showed his own fangs in a smile, rubbing his tongue behind them. “I worked hard for them,” he rolls his thumb against his golden ring on his pointer finger. The monster knew what she was doing, the strategy she was using was the same he used on lonely housewives who wanted to take petty revenge on their husbands by hitting them where it hurts the most: their wallets. She was buttering him up, praising him and then she’s going to hit him with the _ you can use that money somewhere else  _ bullshit. All he needed was to know what she was selling. 

“What do you work as?” she asks, tucking her stray curl behind her ear to give the illusion that she was just a bit nervous and new at this. Ricky knows that trick far too well. His go-to was rubbing the back of his neck or his lower back to show the sign of hardwork to have women pity him and have men pat his shoulder. 

“Let’s just say you and I belong to a certain medium,” Ricky stuffs his hand in the pockets of his slacks, open and vulnerable to lure in his victim. He didn’t want to kill her but he did want to squash her little business proposition or what product she was trying to sell him. 

She picked up on it. “Art is so hard to come by nowadays,” she says, relaxing her body language as well.  _ She was a mirror, _ he thinks.  _ She shows you what you want to see _ . 

He connected the dots. “In what way, Miss....?” he waits for her to fill in the gaps. 

She grins, accepting defeat quite well. Or perhaps, she was playing the Underdog Game. “Francesca,” she introduces herself. “Fran for short.” 

He took her hand, shaking it with a firm grip that she reciprocated. “Ricky.” The monster lets go of her hand when he hears the door opened behind him and turns around when C.C and his family walk back in. 

C.C goes straight towards him, reaching to wrap his arm around his shoulder and kissing the side of his head, quick and soft. 

Fran watches the shorter man’s expression as he accepts the kiss from her own lover’s brother. Mister Ricky’s face softens, letting his guard down to accept such a sweet sign of affection and pleasant love. Fran could tell that they have been very happy together. She doesn’t understand how because, frankly, Caroline was the one holding the Tinsley’s genes up with her own beauty and grace. But she could see the familiarity between these TInsley siblings. Not O.C however. He seemed the odd one out, with his dark hair and beard and intimidating height that wasn’t as charming as Charles or Caroline’s. 

“I’m sorry that we haven’t had the chance to introduce ourselves,” the Tinsley middle child says, his arm still around his lover’s shoulders. Holding him-- touching him. With that look in Mister Ricky’s eyes, he was sure to draw blood. But here he is, calm and sweet when it comes to the affection of his strange, skinny man.

_ Strange _ , Fran thinks as she raises an eyebrow and shakes his hand. “You must be the dead brother,” she states, pretending to not have been the one that held onto Caroline at her lowest while this man was out somewhere eating caviar. 

C.C’s face flushes from embarrassment, his eyes dropping for a second with shame but they went back up to make eye contact with her. She squints at him. “I… yes. I am that dead brother. I’m sorry that I had to come out of hiding because of the situation.” he says, squeezing Ricky close to him. 

Francesca tried to pretend to not be interested when he said ‘go into hiding’. She had to bite her tongue to stop him from asking  _ why  _ and _ from who  _ and  _ what did you do to do such a thing _ . But with money you can do anything, she had learned. She hums, pulling her hand back. She looks aside, watching the only small child in this building play with her stuffed animal. She seemed like a sweet child but who knows what type of blood garments she was wearing. Fran knows far too well about how children live blissfully ignorant from their parent’s lives and wonders if this child ever questioned her position in life. 

The door opened and the eldest Tinsley stepped back in as if he was out for a smoke. Francesca glared at him when they made eye contact, a mutual agreement that after that awkward and inappropriate interaction that they were going to be sworn enemies. That this means war. The type of war that plays out under people’s noses. She watches the man step up behind his brother, hand slapping him on his shoulder and that was when Fran knew this was going to get messy and it was best for her to stand as far as she can. But close enough to watch. What can she say? She loves to people-watch. 

“Charles,” O.C says when his hand landed on C.C’s shoulder, making him jump and tense up a bit. Having his brother this close made him uncomfortable since he wasn’t really the touchy-feely type. The only physical touch that O.C gave C.C was a punch that ended up with a chipped tooth and a split top lip. “You haven’t introduced me yet to your… significant other.” 

C.C rolls his eyes. He didn’t know if Oscar Cole was being homophobic or just an asshole. “O.C, meet Ricky. Ricky, meet Oscar Cole.” he introduces them plainly and goes to push his lover away with his hand on the small of his back, trying to get them away from each other. C.C had a feeling that talking to each other would not end well.

But his older brother steps in front of them, making his presence be known. And what an annoying presence it was. Oscar Cole smiling is like watching a clown cry on the subway: disturbing and unsettling. As if it was a situation you shouldn’t be watching. C.C can’t recall the points in his childhood where his brother was asked to smile. Even their mother knew that his smile would ruin the family picture. It wrinkles the corner of his eyes, making him seem older and his slightly cooked, thin nose scrunched up a bit. It was eerie. 

Ricky stares up at his lover's older brother. That’s the only thing he could do: look up. He always thought that Charlie’s height was hard on his neck and posture, especially every time they shared a kiss. But it seems like their exaggerated heights really did run in the family. He remembered that the only occasion that Charlie ever mentioned his brother was when he made fun of his height and he said,  _ You should see my brother then. He’s six foot six. _ At the time he thought he was lying, trying to impress him but it seemed like he wasn’t at all.

The eldest Tinsley picks up the significantly shorter man’s hand to shake, slightly amused by the surprised and in awe expression. “So you’re the man that my little brother has been hiding with?” he says, feeling how small this man’s hand was in his palm. He knew that he gave off an intimidating look with his looming height, and he used it to his advantage. 

The monster snaps out of his awe, shaking his hand back instead of being limp. Squeezing this man’s gigantic hand the best he could. “Yes. I am.”

O.C’s eyes drop, looking him up and down with his empty eyes, inspecting what the man was wearing the best he could without being suspicious. The shoes looked expensive, and so did the suit itself. It hugged the man’s wide shoulders and his waist with a stretch of a fabric that was just… elegant. This man was beautiful. That’s the only way he could describe him. With a soft face but sharp eyes that can cut with a glare and melt with a smile. He was as pretty as Francesca Norris-- and he  _ hated  _ that. 

He spotted an expensive watch around the man’s wrist, it gleams under the light. “So what do you work as, Ricky?” he asks, trying to spark up some type of conversation.

Charlie and him share a look before saying, “An account.” 

O.C nods, pretending to believe him. “What agency do you work at? Or maybe at a school?” he asks. No accountant working in a legal place can make enough money to buy that watch or that cologne or that perfectly tailored suit that fit Ricky like a glove made just for him. “I assume a private school,” he touches the side of his face, catching a whiff of that intoxicating cologne that he doesn’t know if he should want to buy or do something else with that fragrance. O.C tilts his head towards the small child sitting in the chait not that far from them. 

Ricky clenches his jaw just a bit. “I’m… freelancing at the moment.”

“Oh. I wasn’t aware that was something you could do.” 

“Some do,” Ricky says matter-a-factly. 

O.C’s face twitches, trying to suppress a surprised smile. A genuine smile that made him clear his throat to calm down. He knows that he doesn’t have the best grin out there, having to train himself to have immense control over his face. But here, he almost broke it. “What did you say your last name was?” 

“Hopefully, ‘Tinsley’ one day.” Ricky answered without missing a beat. 

Charlie choked on his coffee, having some dribble out of his mouth and down his shirt.    
  


“Are you okay?” Ricky asks, his hand going to touch C.C’s chest, eyes locking with Oscar Cole for half a second. “Do you need some water?” he asks as he continues to cough. “Let’s get you into the bathroom.” The monster says as he pulls his lover away from his brother and shoves him into the bathroom. 

The tall man turns on the faucet and grabs a paper towel, wetting it to clean his chin where most of the coffee had escaped his mouth from the sheer shock of what Ricky had said. And he said it was so calm and casual. He clears his throat, trying to get rid of that scratchy feeling. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that your brother was going to get suspicious of me?” Ricky whisper-yells, trying to keep as quiet as he can. 

C.C was wiping his shirt, trying to remove the stain. “Because I didn’t think that he was actually going to show up!” he explains in a hushed voice. “O.C doesn’t like going to family events. One time he tried to wiggle his way out of his own birthday party.” 

“It’s his mom’s funeral-- It’s your mother’s funeral!” He kept the same voice. “He had to show up.” 

The taller man unbuttons his shirt and Ricky looks away from a second, eyes landing on a particular place on the door. C.C wipes his under shirt, trying to get it to dry faster and how uncomfortable the dry, sticky coffee is going to feel after a while if he didn’t get himself cleaned up. “I’m not even sure if he actually went to my funeral,” he says, pulling another paper towel out of the dispenser. “He was in the middle of some case when I ‘died’--” he used air quotes “--and he wasn’t going to risk it.”

“Case?” the shorter man asks, looking at C.C’s face off of the reflection of the mirror. “Your brother is a cop too?” 

Charlie winces. And not only because he touched the growing bruise where his brother punched him. “... FBI.” 

Ricky’s eyes widen and heart drops. “FBI? Your brother is a government man?” he asks. “This is the last thing that I needed, Charlie.” The monster clenches his jaw. He’s already had the government nipping at his heels before, the best he could do at that time was pay them off and move as far as he could from any suspicious locations with his then four-year-old Sophia. But even after that, he’s been extremely careful when it comes to his… work. The worst thing that could happen is him getting arrested and his family crumbling because of his carelessness. 

“Hey.” C.C’s hands land on his shoulders, grounding him from his spiralling and his nerves. “It’s okay. I’m going to keep him away from you. He can’t do much on a simple hunch anyways.” he says. And he was right. “As long as you keep your cool and act innocent then we’ll be fine.” 

He lets out a short sigh before nodding. “You’re right.” 

“Of course I am,” C.C says with a grin as he lets go of his shoulder and begins to button up his shirt again. And Ricky chuckles, hitting him on the shoulder lightly. 

With the last button done, he speaks. “Did you mean what you said? About the last name…?” he asks, feeling his ears turn pink, embarrassed that he had to ask to get clarification. He really doesn’t understand how Ricky Goldsworth was able to make him feel the things he does. An adrenaline rush that he could never get anywhere else or get tired of. And maybe that’s why he loves him. 

Ricky’s own face flushes but he rubs his face, trying to push it down. It was silly that he was still able to blush. He's a wanted man and a master assassin with blackmail material enough to ruin a couple of very important people’s lives. And here he is, blushing like a school boy. “Of course,” he mimics his lover’s voice and tone. But his smile was the thing that made it real, not a joke or a bit. It was a smile of confirmation. 

The ex-detective nods, trying to push down the blush and the sudden jitteriness that played around in his chest. “We… should head back.” he says, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair, trying to smooth it down. C.C places a kiss on the shorter man’s forehead before moving to open the bathroom door. Time to face the crowd, he supposed. 

+++

“Hey.” Francsca says, standing next to her girlfriend. 

Caroline was finishing her cup of coffee, staring into space as she thinks and tries to process all of this. The brother she hated is here being a creep and the brother she thought was dead came back with a new man and child. Granted, she couldn’t say much because that’s what her mother would have ‘wanted’. What? For O.C to be on his seventh divorce and flirt with his sister’s girlfriend and her dead son to rise from the grave with his own version of the _ Addams’ Family _ ? “Hey.”

“How are you feeling?” she asks, not making contact and instead looking at the coffee in her cup, spinning it around. “About all of this.” 

“The only reason I haven’t stabbed any of them because there’s gonna be a clean up fee,” she mumbles. 

Fran’s lips twitch, threatening to have a smile split across her face. “You shouldn’t be as funny as this at a funeral.”

Caroline shrugs. “It's the pain that makes me funny.” She swallows the last of her coffee when she sees her brother and his ‘lover’ _ (okay what is up with that?)  _ leaving the bathroom. She crushes the styrofoam cup in her hand, feeling some of the left over coffee make her hands sticky. “Please tell me they did not fuck in the bathroom at a funeral,” she mumbles angrly through her teeth as she walks towards them, throwing the cup aside in a trash can with Fran following her just to be safe.

“I hope you weren't  _ getting busy _ in there for Ma’s sake, Charlie,” she remarks with her arms crossed, staring at them with her nose scrunched up in disgust. 

A faint flush grows across C.C’s face, pressing his lips into a thin line, not amused at what she suggested. “Always having your mind in the gutter, huh,  _ Caterpillar _ ?” 

“Caterpillar?” Francesca echoes the nickname with a faint laugh. 

Caroline’s ears turn pink in annoyance and embarrassed. “Shut up,  _ String Bean _ . I’m not the one who was in the bathroom with your ‘lover’.” 

Ricky raises an eyebrow, turning to look up at C.C. “String Bean?” 

Like brother, like sister, C.C’s own ears turn a bright pink. “For your information, we weren’t doing anything. I actually respect my mother enough to not do anything stupid and immature at her funeral.” 

“Are we just going to glaze over the whole ‘Caterpillar-String-Bean’ thing?” Francesca asks, wanting to cut the tension between them but also genuinely curious about where these silly little nicknames came from. 

They didn’t break eye contact, glaring at each other the only way siblings can. “It was a nickname that he gave me as kids because he knew I was terrified of them,” Caroline explains. She remembers the day when they were children-- her being six years old and Charlie being eleven at the time-- and he would pick up a caterpillar on a stick and chase her around the yard until their father would yell at them to stop. 

“And String Bean?” Ricky asks when she was done painting that memory before them. 

C.C rolls his eyes. “I was forced to eat string beans when I was eight or nine… I ended up throwing up,” he mutters, a bit embarrassed. “I’m surprised that you even remember that, Freckle Face. You were a toddler.”

“I have a picture of it,” she informs him and watches her brother’s eyes widen in surprise. 

“I thought that Ma threw it away after I begged her to get rid of it.”

Caroline chuckles as she ignores and continues. “He really means he threw a fit because he was embarrassed and I almost took it in for Show and Tell one day.”

Ricky chuckles, can’t help but imagine his lover squirming around and complaining about eating something. Charlie almost never spoke about his childhood with him, always keeping  _ hush-hush  _ as if it was some important mindblowing secret. And he respected him enough to not snoop around but he’s come to understand that perhaps it was just embarrassment. 

Honestly, Caroline wanted to say that this new man in her brother’s life was a bad influence. That him leaving his great life for him was a terrible idea. But she didn’t because it would be a lie. The youngest Tinsley has never seen Charlie so happy. He seemed pleased and actually well adjusted despite “dying”. There was a twinkle in his eyes that she couldn't mistake for anything love and adoration. True love that only someone that has good intentions could have. It seems that this ‘accountant’ was truly the man for Charlie.

She smiled when she saw Ricky wrapping his arms around her brother’s arm, holding him sweetly. His face shifted to surprise when he felt his daughter tug on the fabric of his suit jacket. He leans down far enough for her to whisper to whisper in his ear, something small and brief. Ricky nods as he stands back up straight, “I suppose you two need to be properly introduced.” he says. 

Pushing his small, young child forwards and patting her head softly. “Sophia, dear, meet Caroline Tinsley,” Ricky says. 

“Your aunt,” Charlie adds. 

Here, Caroline was aware how similar this child and the young man were. They had the same jet black hair, his glimmering eyes that looked like liquified diamonds and almost the same smile. The reason why she said  _ almost  _ was because she has yet to have the same confidence that he had. It was something that she had to grow into; like a sweater or a pair of shoes waiting deep in her closet for her to come to the correct age to wear. 

_ It was heritage _ , Caroline thinks. Ricky’s smile was odd. It felt as if it was only a half, as if he was holding back. She couldn’t imagine why though.

“Hello,” she says, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, a bit nervous to meet her niece. She never thought she was going to become an aunt. Let alone because of Charlie. Perhaps an illegitimate child from Oscar Cole. 

Sophia hugs her stuffed octopus but she doesn’t say anything, shifting on her feet. 

“I’m your Aunt Caroline,” she says. “I doubt that your Step-Father spoke about me but I’m his sister.” 

The child shakes her head, hair swifting. It seems like she doesn’t get out that often. Caroline was in charge of taking care of children, loving kids being able to understand them the most. Her first awkward interaction with Sophia seemed almost scripted, that her father told her to practice before speaking. It wasn’t common that parents tell them to practice what to say, especially at the age of being chatty. 

Ricky pats his daughter’s head again, making her eyes shift up to make eye contact-- telling her to make eye contact. A signal or like a button, as if she was a doll. 

“Hi,” she mumbles under her breath before hugging her stuffed animal closely to her chest. 

Caroline smiles at the toy. “I like your octopus. Does it have a name? Is pink your favorite color?”

Sophia shakes her head again to both questions.

The youngest Tinsley jumps when her phone rings, not expecting it to be so loud in the beginning of such a tender moment. The only reason she knew that it was her’s was because of her stupid ringtone. _ ‘... Baby One More Time’ _ , didn’t seem as funny anymore when it was at her mother’s funeral that frankly felt more like a family reunion. 

She stomps over to the chair where the leather jacket had her phone tucked in. “What?” she spits into her phone after she answers, not looking at the contact. “Can’t you people see that I’m mourning here?” she yells at what she thought it might be a SPAM LIKELY. The other side of the line was dead quiet before it beeps, the person on the other end seeming being too put off by her screaming. Caroline stomps her foot down and throws her phone aside, feeling childish. 

“...Is that Ma’s leather jacket?” asks C.C. 

She turns around to see her favorite brother and her least favorite brother staring at her with their faces having the same expression. An expression that can only be described as hurt and betrayal. She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? What about it?” she asks. She has a feeling this is going to go downhill really quick, putting her guard up almost immediately. 

“You  _ took  _ Ma’s favorite leather jacket?” Oscar Cole asks, taking a step forward as if that would make her following explanation better. 

The youngest Tinsley squints at him, waiting for the sense of doom that casts a shadow over all of them, like a tidal wave that will wipe them all away. 

“You always give me shit about knowing what’s on the will and here you are, taking Ma’s clothes while her body is still warm. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not the only thing you slipped out.” Oscar Cole grits, his tone too bitter for it to be just about this one thing. 

“Oh fuck off,” Caroline spits out without missing a beat. “Just because you’re the eldest doesn’t mean that everything will automatically go to you. You have other siblings, you know?” she starts, catching her breath to let the dam break. “And you must be out of your  _ goddamn _ mind if you think I’m going to let you talk about Ma.  _ You  _ weren’t there when I had to see her body.  _ You  _ weren’t her ‘next of kin’. _ I _ was the one that got the call. _ I _ had to plan this fucking funeral while you think you could stroll in to pick up your inheritance and then leave to go back to your empty house, empty life with your tenth ex-wife on speed dial. But I might be wrong. You probably have nothing else going on. Nothing else to do after. You have nothing, Oscar Cole.  _ Nothing _ .” 

For the first time in possibly years, Oscar Cole’s face showed unfiltered, raw emotions. Well, just one. Disgust and resentment towards not just her but his whole family. “The younger child is going to preach to  _ me _ ?” he scoffed. “ _ You’re _ the one that has done nothing with their life.  _ You’re  _ the nothing here. So yes, it’s always been  _ you  _ but it's been about pity. That’s why you’re the least memorable Tinsley.” he spits out with venom through his slightly perfect teeth. 

The only reason Caroline didn’t slap the beard off of his face was her being interrupted by the knock on the front door. She takes in what was probably her tenth calming-down-deep-breath of the night, stomping past her brothers, glaring at her eldest. She stands at the door, fixing her hair and face. 

“Logan,” she exhales with her exhausted expression. Her cousin wrapped his arms around her, comforting her the best he could as he sways side to side in their embrace. 

“How are you?” he asks when he pulls away but his hands are still on her shoulders. Logan was the kindest in her family. They grew up together, having each other’s back. There was a time where they said they were going to become a super spy duo. The only reason why her childhood was so bearable was because of him. 

Caroline shrugs. “I’ve been… somewhere emotionally. I’m not sure. Come in.” She pulls him inside, him taking off the coat and scarf he was wearing for some reason. Leave it to Looney Logan to wear winter clothes in California. 

He was hanging up his coat when his face pales. “Charlie? You actually came?” he asks, flabbergasted before clearing his throat. “I mean, of course you came…!” he chuckles nervously. 

She looks at her brother, them at her cousin and the back at her brother again with wide eyes.

“I mean,” Logan chuckles, fidgeting with his tie. “Oh my god, you’re alive…” he says with  _ zero  _ surprise in his voice. 

Caroline holds her forehead as she looks down at her feet. She sighs, tired. Not just physically but just how tiring what this funeral has brought emotionally. “This family is a fucking nightmare,” she whispers under her breath before punching her cousin in the arm. 

He winces, not in pain but in the sheer surprise. “You knew he was alive?” she hisses, truly pissed at what this family has become. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Logan puts his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t allowed to. I was paid to keep quiet-- Oh hey, Ricky. Ricky?” he says, spotting the shorter man and waving at him before processing that he was  _ here _ . In the open. With Charlie and his daughter. 

She turns around to look at him and then back at him. “Paid? Why were you paid? Since when did you become a fucking sell out?” she asks, too many questions bouncing around in her skull to even process it. “Is there something else I need to know?” she asks rhetorically, annoyed at how this life has turned on its head right this second. 

There was a faint knock on the door before it was opened by… Ricky? “Hey, the bottle had rolled under the seat and I needed to fish it out. But a glass broke so I’m not sure if I should bring them… out.” The man stops talking when he realizes that everyone is staring at him. He had a bottle of wine in his hand, the other one still on the doorknob. 

Caroline twists again, looking at the man at the door and the man next to Charlie to make sure she wasn’t imagining things with the possibility that he had snuck out the back door and just came back in to fuck with her more as part of some sick prank. But she was wrong. There were two Rickys. The one standing by the door and he looked different, in a different suit and his hair was longer as there was a bit of stubble growing around his cheeks and chin, a slightly darker 5 o’clock shadow but his face was also littered with scars. The most prominent one being one that curved around his right eye, small ones that were strangely shaped. The only way she could describe it was if his face was rubbed into a pile of broken glass. 

Caroline reaches her hand, grasping in hopes to have Fran standing next to her. She is, holding her hand. “Franny, dear, if I faint please make sure I have an hour of sleep.” she jokes as her knees buckle and she crashes into her girlfriend’s arms, going limp for a second but was shaken awake the second her eyes fluttered closed. 

She lets out a groan, still in her girlfriend’s arms. “What is going on?” she asks, exhausted and just wanting to go home and take a long hot bath. 

Ricky Number Two closes the door and places the wine bottle on the table where the coffee, the donuts and the cookies reside. “I’m Nick. I’m Logan’s, uh… business partner-- ow.” he gets elbowed by her cousin. “Okay, whatever. I’m just his partner in general. Life partner if you wanna get mushy.” He glances over and spots his lookalike, glaring at him the second they lock eyes, sharing a mutual look of resentment and hostility. “Ricardo.” 

“Nicholas.” 

“Twins?” Fran asks, slowly understanding and accepting that this family is just fucking bonkers and she has no idea if her lovely girlfriend knew this or just realized it after years of getting away from it and coming back to it that she final grasped the bizarreness that it was. She doesn’t get a confirmation, slowly nodding to herself. “Twins.” 

Caroline waves her hands around, trying to erase whatever was happening around her. “Okay, okay, okay… is there anything else you all need to share before the lawyer gets here to read the will.” she asks, just so sick and tired what life was throwing at her.

C.C and Ricky shared a glance but didn’t say anything. 

“Good,” the youngest Tinsley says, tucking stray hairs behind her ears. “We have half an hour before she gets here. Play nice. If there’s even one drop--  _ one drop _ of blood on this carpet it is coming out of one of your wallets.” she threatens, meaning it with all her soul. “If you would excuse me, I’m going to hide in the bathroom and question the reason why I was born into this family.” 

Oscar Cole scoffs and his sister flicks him off as she walks past him to head towards the bathroom. 

A silence was left when she was gone, everyone staring at each other, unsure what to do with her gone. It was like she had left a landmine under everyone’s feet and if one person spoke or moved, it would end up with a big boom shaking the earth. 

It was Ricky who decided to risk it all by moving, moving to pour himself some coffee, leering at his brother as he adds his sugar packet. To say that him and Nick don’t get along was a gross understatement. Spending their childhoods stuck together before trying to stab each other with anything remotely sharp and cutting each other for years. It wasn’t until Ricky met Charlie and told him about his cousin who had gotten mixed up with the Mafia and needed a place to hide for a while. Ricky being the ever-romantic agreed to let that cousin stay and was not-so-pleasantly surprised that his own brother was his lover’s cousin’s… partner. Frankly, he thought Nick had landed himself in jail or maybe pumped full of lead. 

Ricky takes a sip of his coffee, making a face at how blandly cheap it was. He turns around with a cookie in a napkin for Sophia, yet he didn’t see her standing next to C.C. Instead, she was with her uncle, looking up at him with her hands linked behind her back. 

She had met her uncle previously, around the same time her Step-Father came into her life. It was confusing to find out that her father had a brother that looked just like him (more or less) but she had accepted it quickly. Now she sees her Uncle Nick and his… partner once in a while. Just for her birthdays and only an hour at Christmas time. She never understood why her father hated him so much, isn’t family supposed to accept each other? 

Suppose. 

The monster walks up to his brother and his daughter, placing his hand on the top of her head softly like a soft pet. He smiles at her, handing her the cookie for her to eat but looks up to glare at his brother. “Why are you here?” he asks, borderline demanding the answer as soft as he could with his daughter present.

“I’m here to support Legs in a moment of crisis,” Night Night explains, watching his… partner talk to CC, with a pink nose and puffy eyes. “This death truly affected him,” he explains, truly a moment of honesty between the brothers. “He cried for hours when he got the call. He wouldn’t stop crying, Ricky. Mrs. Tinsley was a mother to him. More than his own. So I ask of you, you pretentious son of a… gun--” he cuts himself when he realizes that his niece was present -- “that we stay away from each other and don’t....”

“Stab each other?” he finishes for him, his hand still on his daughter’s head, eating the cookie as quietly as she can to hear the full conversation. Paying attention so she can understand it later in life. 

But, she slips from under her father’s comforting and warm hand to go back to her Step-Father who was also having a conversation with a family member. His arm was wrapped around his cousin, who was crying into his third napkin that he took from the table. So she goes to sit down back in one of the chairs, but spots her uncle also sitting down. 

Sophia hasn’t gotten the chance to truly talk to Oscar Cole. She only saw him, looking at him with that look of awe many children have when they meet someone new. Especially someone so… giant like him. She remembered how shy she got when she met CC, never having met a man so long and tall before then. Until now. He towers even as he sits down, looking at his phone as if he had something else to do. Something more important than his own mother’s funeral. 

She sits down next to him, staring at him with those doe-eyes that she won’t really grow out of just yet. 

Being in the FBI makes him hyper aware about everything, even out of the workplace. He always thought that it was his father that told him that an officer’s job is never done and that he has to be a hero no matter what. But it made him feel selfish in the most unselfish way. A suicide mission fresh in his brain everytime he wakes up in the morning in his cold bed and cool sheets. 

That being said, he could feel this child staring at him. And it was unsettling. He’s been present for survivors of big attacks, hostages in bomb threats and was a support for victims of human trafficking. But this child made him uncomfortable. She looked just like her father, those eyes made Oscar Cole take a deep breath. 

He twists, eyeing Ricky speaking to his brother, one hand casually in the pocket of his suit pants while the other holds the cup of coffee. Surprisingly, O.C does not see the appeal of his brother which is ridiculous because they have the same face. Besides some imperfections. O.C was never the scars-guy. 

“You’re my uncle, right?” the child asks, looking up at him the best she could with her short height. It probably hurt her neck but was determined to look at his face, yet never locking eyes. Too shy and uncertain with not just herself but him when it came to this strange situation. 

There was no use in lying to children. He should know that to do so effects will last for a lifetime. Just like what happened with him. Living on his father’s lies and values, addicted to upholding the standards that he had placed on him. Until he died. 

“Yes, I am,” he confirms. 

The child blinks. “I’m Sophia,” she puts her hand out for a formal handshake. 

The eldest Tinsley stares at it for a second before taking it and shaking him, feeling how tiny her hand was in his. Her whole hand was swallowed by his, her fist could wrap around around his pinky with room to spare. 

“I’m Oscar Cole,” he said. 

She pulls away, looking at her own hand, surprised at how warm it was by being engulfed by her strange uncle’s massive grasp. “How tall are you?” she asks, craning her neck up to not-quite meet eyes with him. 

And he wanted to laugh. If he had a dollar for every time a person asked him that he could have enough money to go back to school, study to become an attorney, get kicked out and buy himself a spot back in. “How tall do you think I am?” he quizzes with a quirk of his lip. 

Sophia stares at the ceiling, then back at him as she thinks before trying to compare him with her Step-Father in her head. Finally, she looks back at him. “... Six foot?” she guesses. 

Oscar Cole chuckles. “Close enough. I’m six foot six, niece.” The word niece felt forgeign in his mouth, never thinking he would be the type to have nieces or nephews. He always thought that the TInsley name would die or live because of him. Truth be told, he actually likes children. Always wanting them but never able to settle down. Which is funny because he’s been married multiple times. 

His niece nods, as if his height was some sort of piece of profound knowledge. He couldn’t help but smile at her. 

They fell in some sort of comfortable silence. As silence that for the first time he felt as if he didn't need to fill with his uncharming charming ways. That’s the thing about children, they usually speak first and carry the conversation, answering their own questions. They mostly talk to themselves out loud and you are just there, as a witness or just part of the audience. But this child didn't speak at all unless spoken too or her curiosity got the best of her. Oscar Cole wonders if her father told her to stay as quiet as she can in moments. 

_ What drives a parent to silence their child? _ he ponders. What is he doing that her silence had to be taught and in reward she gets the best things in life. The eldest Tinsley glances back at the man, catching him throw his own glance back at him. He feels himself swallow thickly when they lock eyes.

What he was feeling in that moment was indescribable. And if he could gather up the words to even try and compare what his body was experiencing it would be just a repetition of those lines and phrases in old American novels. The best way he could describe it was that scene in  _ The Great Gatsby _ movie where Nick finally meets him, with the fireworks exploding in the background as Gatsby raises his martini glass at him. Just slightly more subtle.

It was Ricky who looked away first, eyes wandering back to stare at his ‘lover’. It was ridiculous that that was the phrase used to describe their romantic relationship. Something boils in his throat and he realizes that it was the same feeling that he caught himself feeling when he stares at his little sister’s little romantic life partner. Jealousy. 

He swallows it down, deep in his stomach and that’s when he realized that he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast. But he won’t eat here. Something about it felt insulting. Oscar Cole watches Ricky throw a kind smile at Charles, who was comforting Logan across the room. 

The pull on his shirt coat sleeve pulled him out of his thoughts. Suddenly remembering that he was sitting by his niece, eyeing her father as if he was a fine specimen or a butterfly in a glass panel. _ A butterfly… _

“You’re sitting on my stuffed animal,” she informs him, tugging on his sleeve again to emphasize the point the best she could without sounding mean or rude. 

His eyes widened when he realized what she just said, twisting his arm back to pull out the stuffed octopus he had pushed against the back of the chair. He stares at in his hand, eyeing as he hands it to her. 

The child immediately takes the toy and pulls it into a hug, pressing it close to her child. 

“Does it have a name?” he asks.

She shakes her head. 

Oscar Cole raises an eyebrow. “Why not?” 

She shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

A knock on the and everyone scrambles around the room as if they were drunk teens caught by the police. Meh. 

Caroline’s head pops out of the bathroom, between the gap, when she realized that it was already nine judging by the clock on the wall. “Shit,” she whispers, closing the door behind her. “The lawyer is here.” 

Like clockwork, everyone went to their respective partner. Logan felt Nick appear by his side, shoulder’s brushing as they lean against the wall closest to the door. Across from them, CC’s hand on Ricky’s shoulder for support. For whom? Who knows. Ricky waves his hand at his daughter to get up from the chair and to stand up with them, and she does. She stands between her father and step-father, their hands on her head or shoulder. 

Fran squeezes her girlfriend’s upper arm, the freckled meat under her fingers turning a soft pink not just from the pressure of the grip but also the nerves that rattled around inside her body. Filled with angry bees ready to burst. 

All of this felt more of a disciplinary thing. No matter how old they got, something about a lawyer felt like an exposure to something powerful. Especially when she has the one with. The will in her hands. 

She ruffles up the fabric of her dress and pulls on her hair, flattening and smoothing it down the best she could. “Miss Horseley,” she greets as she opens the door with that polite, closed-lipped smile people do to each other. 

“Caroline,” the lawyer says as she walks past the younger woman to step inside. 

Margaret Horsely was a short, slightly plump woman with a mess of copper brown hair that was stylized into a tight professional bun, a few stray curls frame her high cheekbones, scare jaw and sharp bulbous tipped nose. “Good evening, everyone,” she greets everyones as she starts to take off her blazzer, placing her slick black briefcase on the floor beside her feet. 

She was a very anti-Mary Poppins woman. Instead of magic, she brought the documents of the dead. 

She hangs her blazzer on the coat rack where Logan hung his own garments. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” she says, but doesn’t express it at all. She’s going through the motions. After two other deaths in the same family, the third one has lost its punch. “Now unlike your father, your mother had a--” Finally she looks up and stops when she recognizes a familiar ‘dead’ face in the crowd. “CC,” she states, somehow not surprised but pleased by his presence. 

“Margaret,” CC greets and would have tipped his hat at her if he wore one, instead he gave her a nod of acknowledgement and respect. 

She shrugs off his presence as if it was a normal occurrence that he rose from the dead. Miss Horsely places her suitcase on that blaster, now crowded table. “Typical that you wouldn’t same me a drop of coffee,” she teases, opening the briefcase and gathering up some pieces of papers neatly tucked in. 

Clearing her throat, she opens her mouth before realizing that she can’t read this. The lawyer peeks into her briefcase and picks out her glasses. Again, she clears her throat and opens her mouth. “Shouldn’t you be sitting down?” she asks, sounding outrages that everyone was standing around. “You do realize that Minerva Tinsley was a wealthy woman, right? She had her own account and assets.” 

Oh shit, everythone realized as they scrambled to sit down in the many chairs that were set out. 

The lawyer stands in front of the sitting family, as if they were children about to learn a new lesson in class. For the third and hopefully, last time. “  _ ‘I, Minerva Tinsley, of sound mind and soul leave my following belongings to my family members:  _

_ To my only daughter, Caroline Dorothy, I leave our home here in California.  _

_ To my eldest son, Oscar Cole, I leave our house in Chicago.  _

_ To my favorite nephew, Logan Madej, I leave him our family recipe book. _

_ I wish for my finances to be split into four ways: to my nephew, to my daughter, and to my two… sons’ ?” _

Everyone froze when they realized that she had read off the word  _ two _ . 

“What?” was said in unison, heads whipping back to look at CC, who was sitting on the last row of chairs, sandwiched between his lover and his step-daughter. 

His eyebrows were high and eyes the size of dinner plates, the words ringing in his ears as if a firecracker had gone off in the building and under his seat. He picks his jaw from up the floor to speak after trying to find a way to talk through his heart beating like a drum. “She… she said  _ two _ ?” he asks to clarify. “Read it again,” he borderline pleads as he stampers out. 

Miss Horsley squints at the paper as she rereads it. “It says ‘two sons’. Clear as day. That means you and Oscar Cole.” 

“But I’m not supposed to be in the will.” CC argues. 

“And you’re supposed to be dead,” Oscar Cole mumbles coldly, sitting alone three chairs away from him with his arms and legs crossed. They glare at each other. 

The lawyer shrugs. “That’s what it says here.” She shows them the paper, not hiding what it says. 

“Bullshit,” exclaimed the eldest Tinsley, standing up from his seat and making everyone realize how giant this man truly was. “She should have edited him out of the will when we all thought that he was dead.” he ranted, pointing at his younger brother as if it was all his fault. “The money should go to just me, Logan and Caroline.”

“Hold it, Oscar.” Margaret says, waving her finger. “I’m not finished. There’s more, so sit your sorry ass down” she barks at him. And he hesitates but does sit down to the confusion of everyone. The lawyer and the eldest Tinsley sibling share a lingering, knowing glance of intimacy before he twits away, trying to look away to seem uninterested and annoyed. “Now, where was I?” she mutters as she reads it over before continuing. “  _ ‘I also leave to my daughter, all of my clothes and jewelry--’ _ “

“Suck it!” Caroline cheers in triumph, standing up from her seat. But was pulled down by her girlfriend to sit back down.

The lawyer just raises an eyebrow at her, she had long accepted that she was a strange girl. “ _ ‘I leave my nephew all of my pottery and books in my library except for one that goes to my eldest son.  _

_ To my youngest son, Charles Cooper, I leave him a code to a side account for his family and my grandchild.  _

_ And-- lastly-- to my eldest son, I leave him a blessing and wish him the best in the game of romance.’ _ “ And with that, that was the end of the will. All of the other paperwork that she was holding was the official paperwork that needed to be signed. But that was it. 

A silence washed over them, letting it all sink in. It was shattered when O.C stood up. “That’s all?” he asks, expecting more. 

Margaret Horsely nods, slipping off her glasses and placing them into the middle of her shirt. “Yes. That’s all. And to clarify, to  _ all  _ of you--” she shoots a look at O.C “-- your mother last edited this document a year ago. So no, she did not forget to put CC out of the will. It was her continuous decision to do so.” The lawyer does a one over before her eyes land on Charles. “You, come here. And have your little boyfriend come along.” 

She closes her briefcase, the will and other papers placed on top before she walks away for a private meeting with the two men in a corner, far from the others. 

Both of them stand up, Ricky patting his daughter on her head as she hugs her stuffed animal. Charlie walks past his cousin, who was drying his eyes but has a look of a bittersweet joy on his face. He knew that his mother meant a lot to him, he can’t imagine what the recipe book makes him feel. 

They were neatly tucked in a corner when Margeret started to speak, hands on her hips that flattered her well in that pencil skirt of hers. “Your mother knew that you were alive,” she states, easy as that. “After a year of your disappearance, she hired a private investigator. But he was useless. So she had me look at my connections and try to find you. Well, at least your body. Let’s just say that she was pretty pleased when you were living in the lap of luxury.” she explains and eyes Ricky. “Should I say, luxury on your lap?”

Pink tinges on his cheek, rubbing the side of his nose. “So why didn’t she approach us-- me?” he asks. 

The lawyer exhales through her nose sharply. “Your mother knew that it was best to leave you be. Especially regarding the situation of your… disappearance.” 

“What?” asked the monster, his arms wrapped around his lover’s arms. 

“My connections are well aware of what you specialize as… Mister Goldsworth,” she whispers his name, leaning down her head as if he deserved this sign of respect.

Ricky’s face shifts, eyes squinting with suspicion and wondering how this lawyer knew his last name and what his career is. She did seem the type to have a leg in the illegal word, it was a possibility that he and her had crossed paths in certain events. 

Margaret raises her hand, calming him down. “Don’t worry, Ricardo. I’m not going to report your crimes. What type of lawyer would I be then?” she teases lightly. 

He scoffs. “So how do you know who I am?” he quipped. 

She grins, showing off her perfect teeth. A smile only an older woman would have and it makes the corner of her eyes wrinkle in a way to show her age but also say that she does take care of her appearance. “I personally haven’t met you before this very moment. But another Horsely has.” 

And he finally remembered why her name was so familiar. The name  _ Horsely  _ was rattling in the back of his head ever since she introduced herself. It was her posture that she presented herself with, one of someone who has so much pride that it hardens under her skin and makes the space between her bones that make up her spine stand up straight. And the sly smile that was always present on her lips, like she knows that she is one step ahead of everyone in this game called Life. 

His eyes widened when he finally connected the dots. “You’re related to Holly Horsely.’

She nods. “I’m her older sister,” she confirms. 

Holly was the artist that had the privilege to paint the portrait of his late mother, Anna Lucia ‘Lucy’, and that painting hangs on the walls of his home. Ricky only met her once and their communication was limited after all. But she did a work that challenges any past artist before her. The work she did, the way she poured energy in every single painting-- every stroke of her paintbrush-- of hers was proof that art truly was not dead. 

“My sister informed me that she had seen a tall, slim man that fit Mister Tinlsey’s description, confirmed it with a picture and with that answer, your mother was satisfied for many months,” the lawyer explains. “But she wanted more. She wanted to see a photo of you alive and well-- in one piece. Lucky for her, we were able to catch a picture of the three of you at an event.”

“Which one?” Ricky asks, a single brow raised. 

Miss Horsely gives him a slight lip twitch but doesn’t answer, instead she continues. “Mrs. Tinsley demanded to see you in the flesh but that was particularly hard to do when you only come out of hiding every once in a while, no? Despite my explanation of that, she managed to get lucky once. She saw you three-- Ricky, you and the small child out. In a park across the city.” 

Ricky inhales sharply. “A year ago. We went out for Sophia’s birthday at a park.” he mutters. 

“That’s when she called me to put you back in the will again,” she slides her hand on her head to smooth down any loose, crazy strand of hairs. “That’s a I can say.” 

“I think you’ve said enough,” Charlie says and he puts his hand out. 

She stares at it. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

Margaret takes his hand, a firm and respectful grip that shows that he understands and will always be grateful. “It was a pleasure to work for your family, C.C,” she nods. “I’ll send in the papers to sign.” She lets go of his hand after a firm squeeze. “It’s best I get going.” She walks Ricky. “It was a pleasure to have finally met you, Mister Goldsworth. I hope to see you soon.” 

“I’m not sure if I should feel threatened or not?” Ricky jokes, flashing him such a genuine smile. He’s never been the best with new people but he has a feeling that he and her had something in common. Her and Francesca seem to be closer akin than his own brother. 

The lawyer’s plum colored lips curve, picking up her briefcase off of the table and spotting the intact box of donuts that sat there. The seal wasn’t even broken and the box was in pristine condition. “Is anyone going to eat these?” she asks everyone, ignoring the fact that some were still mourning the loss of their family member. Someone shook their head-- the man sobbing in the corner-- and that was good enough for her to pick up the box on top of her briefcase, balancing both of them on the inside of her forearm as she walked towards the food. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll call you soon for you to sign everything to confirm the transferring of the things you inherited and such,” she picks up her blazer from the coat rack and with that, she is gone. 

Everything was done.

Logan was wiping his tears with a napkin but he couldn’t help but smile. “You know, OC” he spoke up, voice cracking with all of the emotions that were stuck in his throat. “If you really are mad about the money, you can have mine,” he cracks before clearing his throat. “I just… I just want this to be over with and if the money means so much to you, you can have it. As long as I keep the recipe book-- that’s all I want.”

Caroline eyes her eldest brother. “Don’t you dare think about accepting that offer, you bastard,” she scowls at him, knowing that he was probably thinking it over in his head in how to accept it without seeming like the asshole that he is.

“He offered,” OC muttered, hands in the pockets of his coat as he ponders. “Am I  _ not  _ supposed to think about accepting an offer?” 

CC scoffs, disgusted that his brother was so cruel and cold to his own family members and only caring about the money that was hanging each other on their heads. “You never change, do you?” he muttered under his breath. 

A shiver went up his spine at the feeling of being whispered about, the hairs in the nape of his neck standing up like an angry cat’s. He whips around to look at him, eyes cold and hard like a dark frozen lake that nothing can crack through it. “I’m sorry,  _ what _ ?” He grits his teeth even though he knows what he said. OC is well aware of what his family and mutuals think of him, and he accepts that. He knows that he’s a terrible person but what can you do to prevent it when it just feels like your true self? And besides, being a bad person runs through his veins and the same blood runs through his sister and brother. Despite acting so high and mighty, they’re just as bad as him-- perhaps even worse. It makes you seem even more terrible when you’re pretending to be good. 

Charles straightens his posture. “I said ‘you never change’,” he repeats himself, speaking loud and clear and unshaken. “Always putting your greed and ambitions first instead of family. Acting like a drop out sleazy attorney because that’s what you want to be.”

Oscar Cole’s eyebrows raise up as far as they could as he takes a step forward. “That is rich coming from you,” he hisses. “You have no right to talk about family when you left it for some…” HIs eyes land on Ricky, the man standing beside him with a serious face and dark look in his eyes. And he couldn’t help but drag his eyes up to his perfectly styled raven hair down to those nice expensive shoes that feel were made just for him. “Some… call-boy.” 

“Do not speak to him that way,” CC whispers, his hands wrapped around the front of his coat and shirt in one swift movement. 

“Or what? You said it yourself, we can’t punch each other at Ma’s funeral.” 

CC’s grip on his brother’s shirt and coat loosen just a bit , eyes roaming across the familiar face of his brother as a feeling weighs down on his heart. It hurts him to see him like this, no matter how much he claims to hate him, so self absorbed and cruel and power hungry about everything. One wish he always had was for him to change his ways, to know that he doesn’t have to be this way.

Finally, he lets go. The same way he should have let go of his hope for change. 

O.C exhales, a slight smug expression that twists on his face. “I think you should get going.” he advised but not with the best interest in heart. 

Charles’ eyes narrow. “I think you’re right,” he agrees, his hand dropping to the small on Ricky’s back, feeling the seething anger that slowly began to boil underneath the surface in hopes to calm him down. “Sophia, let’s go,” he says, calling for his step-daughter.

As he walks towards the door, he throws his sister and his cousin a look of sympathy, knowing that they would have to deal with Oscar Cole a bit longer. 

Just as they reach the front door, Ricky having one foot out the door, the eldest Tinsley simply had to have the last word. 

“Charles, promise me that when I die, don’t come. You make us Tinsleys look like heathens,” his cold eyes locking with Ricky’s cold ones-- a dagger smashing into a frozen sea, cracks slowly forming with that intense stare. 

CC slowly inhales when he sees the sneer that he was throwing at his lover, his heart beating steadily the same way he feels when his training is about to start. “Ma would be disappointed in you,” he spoke up with all of his courage, his hand tightening around the cool door handle. “Pop’s would be too.” 

In one swift movement, Oscar COle slips off his coat, letting it fall onto the floor with his shoulders straight and posture ready. 


	7. Loving Your Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood. Devotion. And Not The End.

“What are you doing?” Charles' eyes watch the coat fall to the floor. That black coat that was so similar to his own. He recognizes the way his brother was standing, the fighter position with his legs apart and arms up. Honestly, he was surprised that his brother even remembers how to stand like that. Oscar Cole always reminds everyone that he’s safe behind his desk, working from a safe distance, and will probably outlive him while ‘actually doing their job’. 

“What do you think I’m doing?” he clenches his jaw. “I am done with you having that better-than-you attitude. Basically  _ reek  _ of it.” 

He blinks, dumbfounded that he was doing all of this. “What-- no. You have  _ zero  _ idea what I’ve gone through. I thought you were going to be so happy that I was gone. But no, you always want to be in control and be the best,” he points an accusatory finger at him. “This little tantrum you’re throwing right now not only shows that I am better than you; it shows that I’m more mature than you.” 

The sight of his brother charging towards him was a sight that he’s seen before, the familiar pain that will be going through his body will come soon enough. 

Charles pushes Ricky out of the way the second before the air was knocked out of him, being tackled out the door and falling down the steps, rolling on the sidewalk, and landing on the grass. 

Pain explodes from the center of his back, the spot between his shoulder blades and it spreads out through his body, carried by the red blood vessel in his veins. A pop rings in his ear as he feels a sharp throbbing on his shoulder he had landed on. “You’re a fucking bastard,” he hisses in pain as he groans, scrambling to get up. “I hope you know that,” Charles mutters with all of the venom he had been holding back for all these years. 

Maybe this fight is what they needed. To bond, you know? God loves playing sick jokes when it comes to this family. 

C.C holds his shoulder, the throbbing getting worse every time he moves too fast, slumped over to protect it. He ducks when his brother swung at him. So much for  _ not  _ fighting at a funeral. 

Caroline’s heart dropped when she saw her eldest brother basically body slam C.C out of the building to roll around onto the grass like two rapid animals locking jaws, ready to spill blood. Leave it to them to fight in front of a funeral like the dumbasses they are. 

She steps out, everyone behind her to watch O.C swing at his brother, clumsily as he hadn’t landed a single hit. 

When Ricky saw the giant man heading towards him, his whole body tensed up to take the hit by instinct. He wasn’t expecting Charlie to push him out of the way and be tackled out the door. His heart was beating in his ears, so much adrenaline pulses inside his body. Practically shaking for his energy to explode from under his skin. Ricky stands up, having been shoved against the wall when his lover pushed him out of the way. He pants, an instinct pulsing to shed blood to protect those he loves. 

He turns around, putting his hand on his daughter’s shoulders. “Listen to me, sweetie: go hide in the farthest corner you could find and do what I taught you to do. Okay?” he spoke, voice shaking just a bit but trying to sound as calm as he can. 

She nods, knowing what he was talking about too well. You don’t get into that line of work without training your child to stay as safe and far away from the best you can possibly teach them to. 

“Go. And don’t go outside until _ I  _ go to get you. Okay?” 

Sophia nods once again and quickly goes to follow her father’s instructions. 

The monster steps out, his gaze briefly locking with his brother’s. A look of mutual connection grows between them. Not the brotherly kind, but the professional kind. Sympathy and understanding of how difficult a job is. 

“I’m not gonna fight you, Oscar,” he says, dodging another hit that his brother swung at him.

“No need for a fight,” he says, shuffling on his feet to pump himself with more energy. Not that he needed to. The anger buzzing inside of his body was enough to probably fuel him for the rest of his living days. “Just take the hits.” he mocked, angry and his teeth bared like he was ready to tear his skin off. He put extra strength and speed on his punch, thinking that this was gonna be enough to knock his little brother out. 

But his brother dodged it with one swift move, causing O.C to land on the ground with a teeth-chattering thud. 

“You know why we call you a bastard?” Charles asks, still on his feet and his voice dancing the line of mocking but long crossed teasing him for being an idiot.

Oscar Cole slowly sits up, getting back on his feet. His heart was beating faster and harder in his chest like the heavy beating of a drum, he grits his teeth as he tastes pennies after he bit himself. He knows that he might not be the strongest but C.C always bragged about being the fastest, quick on his feet. 

“It isn’t just because you were born out of wedlock.” Now he was mocking him, a sly smile on his face. “Always saying that you were the one holding up the most responsibility when you are just as neglectful as Pops,” Charles pushes his dangling arm up, hearing it lock back into his socket. An aching spreads through the whole right side of his body. It was a less intense pain but it has been a while since he’s dislocated a bone. 

“I’m the one who kept my life, tried to make it worth something,” OC tries to land a right hook, pushing himself up from the ground. “I contribute to society; you ran away from it. Hiding in some corner in the world.” He pants, his age being reminded by his tired body. “You’re still as childish as ever. Even from the grave, Ma picks favorites. 

C.C’s eyebrows furrow. “Ma loves-- er… loved you,” he assures. “She just didn’t like you.” 

Finally, Oscar landed a hit. Knocking his first across his brother’s face. An ache exploded on his wrist, pulling his hand away with a wince and shaking his hand to try to flake away from the pain. Proving that he hasn’t really thrown a proper punch in a long time. 

C.C groans, holding his face and feeling the thumping of the forming shiner. “You already threw the first punch a long time ago,” he huffs, a pulsing coming from where his brother punched him earlier in the stomach. He had let that one pass but it seems everything just went out the window the moment the inheritance was revealed. Charlie strikes him right on the nose in one swift hook. 

Blood gushes down his face from his nostrils, dribbling off of his chin and onto his white shirt. “What are you going to do? Call the cops?” he seeths striking a blow on his little brother’s stomach and knocking the air out of his lungs. Where C.C had speed, he had strength. 

His brother slumps over, holding his stomach and having his face in a vulnerable place. 

A horrible thought crosses through the eldest Tinsley’s mind, a flash of fantasy behind his eyes as he could just grab his brother’s head and knee him in the face. Knocking some of C.C’s teeth out and breaking his nose. His fingers twitch, body wanting to fulfill the idea. And he knows that if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. 

Ricky bites the inside of his lip, tasting pennies and stepping forward to join-- to help. He’s been in far too many fistfights for him to not try and help the man he loves. A hand pressed against his chest, pushing him back to stay away. His tunnel vision solely focused on the pain expression of his lover as he struggles to keep up the fight. 

“This is a family matter,” he heard someone say but it went to deaf ears, not able to recognize the voice at all. His blood boils, waiting for Charlie to slowly stand back up again. 

Gulping down a few breaths, the middle Tinsley child sways to try not to fall over. Even he can admit that he’s been a bit out of shape, not used to taking long breaks when he was in the field. Even with him solving most of his cases behind a desk and screen, we still had the occasional chase-down and he did enjoy jogging. But it stopped. Now he regrets it. 

Charlie takes another deep breath in, feeling dizzy. “This should count as an abuse of power,” he jokes, trying to strike his brother in the face but was blocked and pushed off. He stumbles backward, almost falling on his back, his muscles aching and burning with all of the energy he’s burning. 

But he crashed against the ground when his brother tackled him, his ears ringing from his head hitting the dirt and grass under him. The moonlight seemed so blurry as he tried to adjust his eyes. Charles only sucked in a single breath that was knocked out from his lungs when he felt a weight on his throat. 

He leers up at his brother as Oscar Cole presses down onto his neck with most of his weight. C.C was a detective for a long time, aware that he probably has only a few minutes of air until he passes out or his windpipe is crushed. Gritting his teeth and clawing at his brother’s hands he thinks:  _ I should have told him he was fat. _ The corner of his eyes slowly gets consumed by the dark, ready to pull him under. 

C.C has never believed in a god, always cynical when it came to life and death but hopeful when it came to people. But right this second, he was sure he was going to bump into his mom at the Pearly Gates. 

That fantasy twisted inside of his brain into this. Stripping away the bloodshed to transform it into  _ this _ . If he couldn’t make him bleed, he’ll make him purple.

There was a thrill that booms in his body, making him ache and basically making his teeth vibrate with all of the excitement in his veins. Oscar Cole exhales harshly, sounding like a deep chuckle with the sour stone stuck in his throat. Blunt nails dig into the side of his neck, and Charles mirrors him as he rips onto the meat of his wrist. 

It was like drugs. That’s the best way he could describe this. A cloudy fantasy that filled his veins and straining muscles with pleasure. 

O.C was drugged out of his fantasy when a sharp pain burned through his upper arm. Hissing, he pulls away and slaps his hand over the wound. 

Warm blood leaks through his already ruined white shirt and into the palm of his hand. He groans, glancing up to see Caroline standing there with her a pocket knife in hand. A drop of red blood rolls down the blade and lands on the tip of her shiny heels with a  _ splat _ . 

But the look on her face was sharper than the blade and darker than the blood that has been spilled tonight. 

Then, Ricky towers over him for the first time ever to give him a right hook hard enough for Oscar Cole to feel it in his teeth and rattle his bones. 

The monster sharply exhales, feeling some of the blood dry on his bruising knuckles. The wave of relief that washed over him, all of the pent up energy poured out of him the moment he punched the eldest Tinsley in the face. He’s been waiting for that moment all night. 

He helps his lover from up the ground, all of the adrenaline that was coursing through his body was now gone. All that was left was his steady heartbeat in his ears and in behind his eyes and the wanting to lie down.

“Are you okay?” he asks, helping him sit up on the grass.

Charlie’s face was slowly losing it’s purple hue, catching all of the breaths that he was denied in those seconds of strangulation. He coughs, air getting stuck in his throat at the excitement of finally having oxygen to his brain. Charlie nods, a pulsing headache shooting through his skull. He coughs once again before trying to stand up, long legs shaking as if there was an earthquake under his feet. 

“You  _ stabbed  _ him?” he croaks out, seeing the red blood on his sister’s pocket knife. 

“No, I didn’t  _ stab  _ him,” she says, looking at the blade, unsure if she should wipe it on her dress or on her knocked out brother’s shirt awkwardly. It was already dirty anyway. Bending down and she wipes to sit on the cloth of her brother’s trouser pants before pocketing the switchblade in her dress’s pocket. She was happy then because of them and now she was even happier. 

Because of it, both her girlfriend and Ricky let out a sound of disgust. 

Fran steps beside the passed out man on the ground, covered in his own blood and she could see the black eye beginning to form. “Please tell me that he isn’t dead,” she mutters, pushing his limp body with her foot. She jumps back when Oscar Cole groans, holding on to the not-so-deep gash on his arm. 

She exhales and hands over her heart, relieved to see that he’s not dead. Imagine trying to explain that to the funeral home director. 

Legs and Night-Night stares at the man on the ground, Legs leaning down to stare at his cousin with his eyebrows raised. He scoops up from under his pit, Night-Night following suit with a slight look of disgust. But he was too heavy. Maybe he was getting fat. 

The eldest Tinsley’s head hung, probably still out of his mind right now and dizzy and maybe-- hopefully --out of shame. 

“Guess that the whole dispute over the inheritance had blown over, right?” Ricky's voice couldn’t help but sound like he was teasing, no matter how exhausted he felt from the adrenaline crash. 

Oscar Cole lets out another cough, a rough and raw sound that made Ricky’s mouth twisted in disgust. 

The monster steps back, eyes locking with this… sibling of his lover. The anger that he had experienced. It was an anger that he’s only seen in people just like him. 

A monster in the making. 

“So who’s gonna drive him home?” he asks, hands holding up his lover and pressing his ear against Charlie’s shoulder, eyes locking with the man being held up and something inside of Ricky wanted him to make this man jealous. So, he put his hands all over C.C in a safe way, holding him up with love and care. “He probably has a concussion.” 

OC exhales harshly through his teeth, bloody staining his shiny teeth. “I don’t have a concussion,” he shoulders off the helping hands holding him up. He sways, catching himself so he doesn’t fall on the ground again. His shirt was wrinkled and stained with blood and grass stains and his long hair was disheveled. He resembles more like a madman than an FBI agent. 

_ What a perfect metaphor for this man,  _ C.C thinks but his head was still spinning yet still able to judge the hell out of his brother. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, wincing when he moved his muscles and feeling the pain on his face. 

But it was Oscar Cole who looked rough. Blood splattered across his face and shirt, red slowly turning into that ugly brown as the blood began to dry on his upper arm. 

“Caroline, I feel like it’s only appropriate if I invite you to dinner,” Ricky says, feeling his lover slowly able to stand on his own. “It would be a great way to sign the paperwork. And to finally have a full conversation with my sister-in-law.” And he winks, and it should have been inappropriate if he wasn’t so… charming. 

Caroline smirks, somehow not surprised that it had to be this new man to invite her to dinner. Since her brother never had the decency to invite her himself. Granted, he is still a bit hurt but shame on him. “I’d love to have dinner.” Because of that wink, she felt that something was off about him. 

Gathering the taste of pennies in his mouth, Oscar Cole spits out onto the ground right in front of Ricky’s nice, expensive shoes. “Eat that for dinner,” he grumbles. 

And when Ricky looks at him, a  _ thump  _ shoots right through his heart the same way a jumpscare does in a movie. The curve of Ricky’s smile wicked, sharp like the edge of the blade that was used to strike him. An ache, freezing bloomed like the snow bitten breeze of an incoming storm.

It was sharper than Francesca’s, where hers was more of a threat. His, pearly white teeth that could rip him into pieces, was a promise. 

A promise of bloodshed. 

Oscar Cole now understood why he was holding back a grin-- those teeth were the sharp fangs of a monster. 

For a second, it seemed like Ricky might attack. Instead, he smirks. A sense of gloating and victorious glow off of his skin. 

And for some reason, he wasn’t mad at him. He didn’t hate him the same way he hated his brother. Instead, a feeling he had never experienced grew in his chest: pity. Oscar Cole pitied this beautiful beast for being with someone like Charles. The true egomaniac in the family. The corner of his mouth twitches into something mimicking a smile. He stumbles away from them like a drunk man. The blood stopped flowing and began to dry but the pain was still burning every time the cool wind decided to kiss it. The sweat that he had dried on his skin, suddenly freezing without his coat on. 

“I’m going home,” he grits his teeth. The smell of violence lingers in the air. It intoxicated him the same way Ricky’s cologne did. He exhales, pleasure rakes through his body at the sniff of it. Oscar Cole rubs his face, a bit of blood staining the tip of his crooked nose. “I don’t care if I don't ever see any one of you ever again,” he says after clearing his throat. “I’m keeping my part of the inheritance.” 

“Such a sore loser,” CC croaks, finally able to speak with his voice not as scratchy. 

Oscar Cole scowls. 

“Do you need someone to drive… you?” offers Caroline in hopes to break the tension. Despite her deep  _ deep  _ hatred for her eldest brother and his narcissistic behavior, Ma would have risen from her grave and given her so much shit if she didn’t at least offer to give him a drive. And besides that, it didn’t seem like he was in a fit position to do so. 

He shakes his head, stumbling past them. Without saying a single word or even looking back at them, he walks into the night like a stranger man covered in blood. A sight that would make any human shriek in horror. Into the darkness. Alone and cold. The way he already lived in this world. At least now, he knows something about himself. 

  
  


Ricky’s hand reaches to touch his lover’s soft face. “Are you okay?” he whispers.

Charlie nods, wincing when he feels his sore muscles in a certain way. “I think we should be heading back home,” he whispers back, touching the hand that was on his face with an exhausted look. His shoulder droop and he hunches down so he can give his short lover more access to his face so he wouldn’t struggle. 

Ricky’s eyes wander over his face and he wants to plant a kiss all over his face. But he doesn’t. It doesn’t seem appropriate at the moment. “I’ll be right back,” he whispers as he pulls away. “You stay here.” 

When he left back into the funeral home, CC felt his stomach churn. The sudden realization of his near-death hit him in the guts the same his older brother’s fist did. A sour taste crawling up his throat. Charles coughs, hunching over to throw up his half-eaten breakfast and the coffee he had drunk earlier. He coughs, the splatter landing on the grass in front of his shows. 

He heard his sister let out an _ew_ like one does upon seeing your brother spit out chunks. But she pats his grass-stained back to support him, feeling woozy at the sight of brown muck. 

No matter how many times, no matter how many near-death experiences he’s had, Charles always had a weak stomach when he realized how easily he could have caught a trip to meet Saint Peter. 

Which is funny when he realizes that his significant other strips the life from others with his own hands. The same hands used to hold and touch oh-so tenderly. 

“Do you need some water?” Francesca asks with her hands in the pockets of her pants bur leaning down to look at his face. 

He coughs again, finally standing up straight and his face had a bit of a tinge of green. CC shakes his head, wiping his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his coat. “I don’t know how to explain this to my dry cleaner,” Charles complains with a hoarse voice. “The grass stains maybe but the blood?”

Caroline eyes the brown-red stains on her favorite brother’s trademark tan coat. “I think it'll be if you clean it at home.”

CC nods. “Warm water and hydrogen peroxide,” he and Francesca say in unison with a wise tone. A tone full to the brim with experience and knowing what to do. 

They stare at each other, eyebrows raised by wondering how the hell they knew how to get blood off of clothes. At that moment, they both realized something about the other: 

_ They’re not what they seem.  _

  
  
  


It took a while for Ricky to find his daughter. He knows that she knows where and how to hide well. Too much time training her to hide in any crook and cranny she could squeeze through just in case something happened. He’s checked the bathroom and under the sink, he’s checked under the table, he’s checked any place where he could imagine she could think off. 

Finally, he thought of a place. 

Ricky opened the coat closet that was discreetly hidden behind the front door. Tucked in the corner, slept Sophia with her back against the edge of the corner and hugging her stuffed octopus in her arms. 

He smiles, sighing in relief as he leans down to gently shake him away. “It’s time to go, sweetie,” he whispers.

Sophia lets out a hum, rubbing her eyes as she slowly wakes up from her short slumber. Yawning, she looks up at her father, squinting to make sure that it was truly him. “It’s time to go?” she mumbles, standing up and slipping out of the closet. She pats down her dress, looking as nice as she could despite it being well past her bedtime. 

He nods and reaches for her hand to hold. “We missed dinner but I’ll make it up to you in the morning.”

She nods, slowly closing her eyes and wanting to slip back into her slumber. But she snaps herself awake and catches the bruises on her father’s knuckles. Sophia glances up at him. “Are you okay?” she asks, squeezing his hand soft to indicate that this was what she was talking about. 

Ricky presses his lips together in a thin line. “I’m okay,” he says, closing the closet door before opening the front one. 

The streetlights were now on and made their ways down the stone steps towards the three people in the middle of the grass yard. Sophia was sleepy but the worry that struck her in the chest when she saw her step-father bruised up and bloody woke her enough to run towards him and hug him. 

“Are you okay?” she mumbles into the cloth of his bloodied coat, hugging him close enough that it probably only hurt her short and small arms. 

CC stares down at his step-daughter, hands hovering over her head and unsure if he should touch her with his dirty hands. So he didn’t. Instead, he chews on the inside of his cheek. “I think we should head home,” he whispers. “Say goodbye to your Aunts, Sophia.” 

The child stares up at him, sleep-rimmed eyes were now wide awake with some sort of anxiety of seeing him like his. She nods, sniffling as she holds on to her raspberry stuffed animals.

Caroline leans down when the small girl walks towards him, face to face to speak with her. She watches as her niece’s tiny hand reaches over to shake. “It was very nice to meet you,” she mumbles around a yawn and rubs her eyes.

The youngest Tinsley smiles at her, taking her tiny hand to shake. “It was very nice to meet you too, Sophia,” she says. “I have a feeling that you and I will get along in the future.”

The tiny child, being young and her being awake past her bedtime, did not understand this statement. For now. 

Sophia puts her hand out towards Francesca, who was standing beside her girlfriend with her hands in the pockets of her trousers. She was never good with children. Only interacted with one once and that itself is a story for another time. She stares down at this child and all she could think and wonder if she  _ knew _ . If she knew her father was doing something in the dark to provide for her. Even Francesca doesn’t know what this Ricky man does but she could imagine. But a 10-year-old wouldn’t question much. Not when she’s getting fed or when she’s getting dressed in nice silk dresses. No one who is comfortable in life questions the reasons. 

“It was nice to meet you, Aunt Francesca,” Sophia mumbles.

She takes her small hand and shakes it firmly as if she was a client. “It was a pleasure to meet you too, Niece Sophia.” 

The child smiles, sleep still lingers in her face as she pulls away and ready to go home. 

Fran watches her walk back to her parents and she exhales through her nose. Something charming about the man; something sweet about the child. 

“I’ll call you soon for dinner,” CC says, feeling a bit better.

His sister’s eyebrows raise. “How? You don’t have my number? Do you even have a phone?” she asks. 

Ricky shrugs, his hand on top of his child’s head. “I’ll figure it out,” he mumbles nonchalantly. 

Caroline squints at him. “How?” she questions. 

Both men share a glance of oh fuck before Ricky saying, “Facebook. It’s not that hard. The wonders of modern-day technology.” 

She hums. “Dinner then. At your place or mine?” 

The monster inhales, trying to think up something. “We can figure it out. It’s getting late. We should be getting home.” 

The night spanned over the sky like a blanket, ready to swallow everyone beneath it with its cool embrace. The only thing holding up the sky was the flickering streetlights. Caroline nods. “Aright. Good night,” she reaches for her brother’s hand, holding his wrist with her own. “I didn’t expect you to be alive. I’m happy at the surprise.” 

CC grins ear to ear, showing off his charming crooked teeth. “I’m glad to be alive, too, Caterpillar. Good night.”

***

Ricky drove them home. The car’s soft humming lulled his daughter into a deep sleep, her head pressed against the door as she quietly snores and dreams of who knows what. Perhaps sugar plum fairies and ballerinas and piano keys. Who knows what that child dreams or thinks of? 

Just like father and daughter. 

“Are you sure I don’t need you to take you to the medic?” he asks after glancing at his lover one look over. “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

Charlie shakes his head, his neck a bit sore and the bruises were pulsing. “I’m okay. Nothing painkillers and a bath won’t fix.” he heard his lover hum, eyes still strained on the road ahead of him. “Thank you,” he mutters under his breath when Ricky stopped for a red light. “For bringing me.”

The monster’s eyes wander to him. “It was your mother’s funeral. Of course I’m going to take you,” Ricky said. “I care about you enough to risk my life just for you to say your goodbyes.”

His hand wraps around Ricky’s smaller ones. Ever since they’ve met, he’s always joked that he doesn’t have the hands of a murderer but the hands of a hard worker. Calloused with age and rough skin from the struggles he’s been through. Charlie squeezes his hand. “Would it be cliche if I say that you’re too good for me?”

He laughs and throws his head back. “Yes. that would be cliche,” Ricky grins. “But you’re wrong.”

“Oh?”

The monster smiles up at the moonlight. “I think you’re too good to me.”

Charlie takes Ricky’s hand and plants a kiss softly. His heart swells and all he could think of was how did he manage to find a man like him. Devoted and loyal and hardworking. Who knew that his soulmate’s hands were stained with violence. 

*** 

After the cleanup, they drove straight home. 

Neither woman decided to speak a word as they drive into the night on the busy streets of Los Angeles. That's one thing that Francesca never liked about this city. That it was too loud and too fast and that it takes a great disaster for the world around them to just  _ slow down _ . 

It wasn’t as bad as New York City, she should know since she lived there for a while but it wasn’t as calm as she would like it to be. Everything was too fast and too loud and just too selfish. She watches people walking their dogs, driving by, talking on the phone, and wonders if they think of others. If they think of who around them has experienced a big loss. Or who around them are just barely hanging on. Francesca wonders if they are aware of their own selfishness. 

Her hands tighten on the steering wheel. The music from the radio was playing but it was barely audible. Just a hum that filled the space they shared in the car. 

“My mom wasn’t the best person around,” Caroline states, playing with a loose strand on the sleeve of her mother’s leather jacket. “But she loved us. And she showed us love.”

Francesca nods as she listens to her talk. 

Caroline residence with a soft smile. “Sometimes, she would make Oscar Cole babysit me and Charlie as she went to the store. I hated being near Oscar so I would beg her to take me to the store with her but she told us that  _ ‘bonding between siblings was important’ _ .” she chuckles at the absurdity and irony in that memory. “But in return, she would bring us our favorite chocolates alongside our favorite dinner.” Pressing her mouth in a thin line, Caroline rubs her thumb across the cool material of the jacket. “She rewarded us for tolerating each other. And I hated her for that.” 

Francesca blinks, eyeing her. 

“I’m not sure if I can’t cry because I… I secretly hated her or-- or because I’m just so angry I can’t even cry,” she stampers.

“Do you hate.. Your mother?” Fran asks, feeling and sounding like a therapist. It wasn’t unusual for children to grow up to hate their parents once they mature. Reflecting on their childhoods and seeing their parents as people with all of their human flaws. And the hatred grows and is revealed even more after that parent's death. It was natural. 

Tears sting Caroline’s eyes and she shakes her head. “No,” she grits her teeth as her cheeks sting by holding them back. “ _ NO _ . She loved me and I-- I loved her too!” A single mascara strained tear rolled down her face.

Pressing her hand over her mouth, feeling the little food she’s eaten churn in her stomach. Maybe she’s not too different from her brother. “I… I don’t have her!” she stampers, trying to reason with herself. 

Francesca stops the car for a STOP sign, squeezing the steering wheel with her sweaty palms. “So why… are you crying?” Never being the type to be good with emotions, especially when trying to comfort the ones she loves. The  _ one  _ she loves. 

More heavy tears roll down her cheeks freely, skin bright red and making her freckles seem even darker. “I don’t know,” she confesses, wiping her tears with her hands, seeing her fingertips stained with dark makeup. “... so why do I feel this way about her?” she mutters as her shoulders shake, chest tight.. “I think… I think that maybe she wasn’t the best mom.”

Francesca swallows dry, stomach flipping alongside her heartbeat beating like a drum. The Liar. That’s who she is. Never once has she not lied knowing what she might get out of it. Instead for when she’s with Caroline. Suddenly, the truth was a prayer on her tongue and she was a faithful woman. 

But one day, Caroline will discover her veil of pretty truths and see through to find the lies that she couldn’t hide. 

“No parent is perfect,” she quotes wisely with her hands shaking.

Caroline nods. “I know. I just… I wish she hadn’t pretended to be a perfect parent. Minerva Tinsley not being a neglectful bitch didn’t make up for the fact that Victor Tinsley  _ was  _ a neglectful son of a bitch. Her letting him be that way hurt. Maybe even more.” 

A silence dances in the air. The soft click and chimes of Francesca’s car keys swinging in the ignition filled the space for just fractions of seconds. The spaces spread a few in between, cracking like cold butter on toast. 

  
  


“You’ve certainly put too much thought to this for you to say ‘I don’t know.’.” The Liar mutters as she pulls up into the parking lot spot. Home is just up on the second floor of this apartment complex. 

Caroline snickers, sniffling as she rubs the tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers, unbuckling her seat belt. 

She furrowed her thin eyebrows. “For what?”

“Listening to me,” the freckled girl mutters as she reaches over to kiss her on the mouth. “And being honest with me.” 

Francesca’s eyes flicker to the side yet she smiles, reaching her hand to tangle it on the nape of Caroline’s neck, light brown hair hiding her hand almost completely. “Always,” she promises on her lips. With devotion, loyalty, and the truth. 


	8. "THE AFTER CREDIT SCENE"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Another One Bites The Dust" starts playing faintly in the background.

There was something romantic about eating outside. With the warm skin kissing the skin and salty cool breeze that comes from the West. It stings in a way that buzzes the soul with the fresh feeling of fulfillment that comes with being alive. 

But Los Angeles, as always, ruins that. Being an exploitative city, a cog in the murder machine that kills everything beautiful this life has to offer. 

Instead of it becoming a beautiful experience, it just becomes something that was seen as a luxury that no one looks at twice. 

Ricky was sitting in a cafe. Well  _ outside  _ the cafe. It was the closest one in L. A that was the height of luxury that he found palatable. He sips on his coffee, the sun shining down on every single table around him. Except for him. Despite that, he wore his sunglasses. 

It was right before noon was about to strike. The cafe will soon be flooded by try-hards trying to impress others or by those of wealth that were here with nothing to do but spend money. 

Ricky was the third option: the wealth rating for someone. For business. He was reading the paper, leaning back into the metal chair. The waiter was surprised that he asked him for it, especially someone so young. But he didn’t mind the short and awkward stares that were thrown his way. 

As soon as the clock turned 12:05, a tall man sat across from him. 

He didn’t even have to look up for him to know that it was Oscar Cole. He smiles as he casually read the stock market section on the paper. 

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your lunch,” Ricky apologizes, tone polite as he finishes his coffee. 

O.C scowls at him. “No, you’re not.” 

Now Ricky smiles. “No, I’m not,” he accepts. Finally, he looks up from his newspaper to catch a glimpse of O.C’s face. 

A nasty split lower lip and a hideous black eye that was slowly turning green and yellow from the time it had to heal. Frankly, he looks terrible. His beard had white whiskers growing out and his hair was unkempt. He looked like he was ready to hit his mid-life crisis. It had been two weeks from the funeral and it seems like he hasn’t really been taking care of himself.

Ricky almost pities him. 

He goes back to reading his newspaper, uninterested in a conversation he invited him to have. “How’s your arm? How many stitches?” 

Oscar Cole’s hands reach to touch the spot. “... five. And it’s better.” 

The monster nods, waving over his waiter for some more coffee. “Do you want something?” he asks.

The taller man shakes his head, watching the waiter take the empty mug of coffee away. “Thank you for the coat,” he mutters, not really locking eyes with him and instead they dart around just in case someone he knew was in this part of the city. 

Ricky shrugs, reading the crime rates section. “Your sister threw it out and I decided to clean it up for you. It’s a miracle she didn’t decide to burn it.” He peeks over the top of the newspaper. “You should really fix your relationship with her,” he advises. 

O.C scowls the same way he always does. “Why did you call me? I’m over your niceties,” he cuts straight to the point. As fascinated as he was of this man, he did have the habit of getting on his last nerves.

Folding the newspaper and placing it on the metal table between them, Ricky sits up. A grin on his face as he slips the sunglasses off. “That whole dispute that you and my Charlie had over the inheritance was… reasonable.”

The tall man raises his eyebrows. 

But Ricky continues. “But I want you to know that it wasn’t about the money. It was about the sentiment,” he starts, a waiter comes back to place his new coffee down and Ricky nodded a  _ thank you. _ “Your mother left him money because she believes-- she  _ knew  _ that he was alive and that he was going to come back to her funeral.” He takes a sip of his coffee and exhales. “It seems like she had more faith in a dead man than in you.”

Oscar Cole clenches his jaw but stops when the pain shoots through his teeth and skull. “Spit it out already,” he demands, eyes bouncing around to not look at this… man. “The last thing I want is a lecture about family coming from you.”

“Hmph,” Ricky hums, unimpressed and not surprised by his behavior. He takes out a small manila envelope and places it on the table right top of the newspaper. “I decided to see how much money was in the inheritance, divided it by four, and saw how much money each of you would have.” He taps the envelope. “That is the exact amount of money that you would have gotten if Charlie was still ‘dead’,” 

Oscar stares at the envelope. It did seem heavy and full of cash. He’s seen others first hand but he never had the context for having one lying in wait right in front of him. For the taking. But he doesn’t touch it. “Why?” that was the first thing he asked. 

Ricky shrugs. “I want this whole.... Fight over already so Charlie doesn’t stress about it every single day.” He pauses. “I know that I can’t buy you, Mr. Government Man. But I hope we can reach an agreement,” he slowly reaches back into the inside of his suit jacket, just the opposite pocket to pull out a box of cigarettes and lighter. 

Oscar raises an eyebrow at the phrase, watching the monster balance a white cigarette on his lips, staring at them intensely and swallowing dryly when he sees Ricky’s lips twitch with a smile when he lit it up. 

Ricky offers him the box. He hesitates but slowly takes one out of the little box, noticing Ricky watching his fingers shake when he lights it up with the small open flame. 

The monster exhales clouds of smoke leaving his mouth through his teeth and it makes O.C’s blood go hotter than the flame. He takes the cigarette away from his own mouth, playing with it a bit as he leans back into the chair so casually with a look in his eyes. 

His hands twitch, not sure if he wants to take the money and leave. Or take something else. His brain flashes with a fantasy that he’s been suppressing. Him and his little fantasies about Ricky and his smile and his lips and how he flutters his eyelashes sometimes-- 

“Typical for Charles to try and slip a way for me to apologize when I’ve done nothing wrong. Hiding behind money and your pretty face,” he accuses, pushing the envelope away from him, coughing around the smoke that got caught in his throat.

Ricky's eyes flicker with surprise. Instead of bursting into a fit of anger, he sighs and reaches his hand over to hold O.C’s large one. His free hand is still holding the cigarette. His thumb brushing against the sharp bone of his wrist that was bulging out of his skin. “I’m doing this on my own. I want things to go away and be better,” he whispers, his tone soft and with vulnerability coating each syllable. His eyes lock with his, far more gentle than they’ve ever been before. 

The table was small and with a man of his height, O.C felt very cramped when he was sitting but in those few seconds, he felt a blanket of ease wash over him. He could smell the coffee that Ricky was drinking and caught a whiff of that cologne and the cigarette smoke that danced in the air between them. The tension that he felt through his body was like a rubber band being pulled to its limit. It made goosebumps crawl up his spine and his heartbeat increase, overwhelming him in the best way possible. Consumed by the warm touch and the scorching smell. 

Oscar felt Ricky press the envelope in his hand, a pleading look balancing on his face as his eyes just were consumed with his black pupils. His heart skips a beat as his sweaty palm grips onto the yellow paper. He nods. “I’ll take it,” he says, sounding defeated but focusing on Ricky’s small--  _ smaller  _ hand on his. 

When he pulls away, Ricky smiles. Seeming pleased with him and himself. He nods. “It’s best for me to get back to work,” he says, slowly getting up. 

The taller man scrambles to get up, the table shaking when his knees hit under the top and his chair being dragged across the ground. “So-- So do I,” O.C stampers, heartbeat still elevated and feeling a faint amount of sweat growing on his hairline. With uneasy hands, he takes out his wallet and places a ten on the table. 

Staring at the manila envelope one last time, he pockets it in the inside of his coat. He watches Ricky tuck the newspaper underneath his arm as he is getting ready to leave. “I never asked how you got this money?” O.C asks, feeling its weight. 

Ricky grins, slipping on his sunglasses again. “Freelancing makes you money when you know what you’re doing,” he vaguely quotes as he slowly walks away, leaving the man in the dust. A faint smirk growing as he walks into the crowd. _ How easy it is to exploit an insecure man? _ He thinks rhetorically. He throws his cigarette on to the ground after a long drag, stepping on it with his fangs sharper and shinier. 

Oscar takes out the manila envelope, giving it a whiff and being swallowed by the smell of Ricky’s cologne. 

_ When you know what he desires and envies.  _

  
  



End file.
